DtG: Destroy the Godmodder (The Broken Masquerade)

[Ender_Smirk]

Smirk had not even began to really get into the match when the Neutral ground had an intruder. He instantly stasised the monitor, and had, moving as quickly as he could, tried to move to stop BADAM, but the Balefire was too quick, and by the time he had even began to form a coherent action to try to fight it, he was already feeling the waves of energy from the entirety of reality bending, the fire apparently having more pure reality warping than even Alethea, as all of reality shifts, pulls, tears apart and rewrites itself to its whim, that of a single item erased years prior. As all this happens, Smirk thinks 'if Adam isn't already dead when this is over, I'll have to kill him myself for not having his stupid Time Police prepped for this.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then Smirk wakes up in another body. It is like his own, but in a ragged trenchcoat, and with a quick check of his pocket dimensions, he finds a distinct lack of setup, implying reality was indeed altered significantly. For Pete's sake, even his full replica of the modern kingdom of Ozymandias, complete with rewind functionality, was missing. Either this version of him was significantly dumber up until now, he hadn't been able to use reality warping prior, or he'd been preoccupied in this timeline. Whichever it is, he'd have to figure it out later, first thing's first, he needed to figure out what happened to this universe.
(First action: )
First thing's first, he scans the void beyond the world quickly, seeing if the easy way works. He also tugs on reality just right to make a reasonably large pile of dirt appear far away from the radius of this world, but still within observable distance, so that he could see if whatever the cause was is perpetual, or temporary, because if the latter, he already had a thought in mind.
(Second action: )
"Adam, if you're still around here, I've got a few quick questions to run through on Badam's henchmen, or rather, statements.
Labolas is a Blue Mage,
Leraje is a Knight,
Ipos is a Ninja
all three the variations from 8 bit Theater, for the record, except the Blue Mage being the variation Black Mage thought it would be.
If not, I'm outta immediate ideas, but you have to start somewhere."
He then proceeds to out of nowhere teleport straight up to Leraje, his fist grabbing him in a chokehold, and then both of them vanish.

Suddenly, Leraje finds himself in the middle of a great city, towering buildings, gleaming infrastructure, glistening gardens, the works. Good food, animals, anything one could feasibly need to consider it a paradise. As he explores more, he would find the entire city operated and maintained by robots, large or small, rushing to and fro to keep the city active. At the center of the city, there stands a statue of a man, wearing a regal attire, standing before all, with a stern, commanding frown on his face.
And on the pedestal the statue is bore upon, these words can be read:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Perhaps Leraje knows what this means, perhaps not. It matters little, for he suddenly feels a shift upon the reading of them. The world around him seems to suddenly, abruptly, begin to decay, robots losing charge or being broken down beyond repair. Buildings crumpling under their own weight, gardens picked up by the winds and sent waywards. All around him he would see this horror, but does he care? Who knows. What can be told, however, is that time is no projectile, it is a function, and as Leraje sits there he can feel it enacting itself upon him. Decay, rot, ages and ages of it, all around him turning to sand as he sits there, feeling eons go by in what feels like moments, with both sun and moon flinging themselves around in a mad dash across the heavens. From this, Smirk's voice suddenly booms down, quoting a poem Verbatim:
'I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."'
Pausing, he then becomes visible before Leraje, seemingly unaffected by the same temporal effects plaguing the demon, for some reason wearing a full suit and tie, in spite of the dust swirling around them. "I am reminded of that poem, by what BADAM just did. Here I was, convinced I was going to fix everything, and then there it all went, time and space folded inwards, all my work down the drain in an instant. Now I don't know if you are a part of BADAM, just a shield, whatever, but I hope very much it's the first one, so that some piece of him can feel this as well. It gives a sensation of a stab in the gut, wouldn't you agree"
Leraje would then look down, and see that while talking, keeping his face calm until the word "stab", Smirk had managed to create a spear out of raw temporum, and stabbed him cleanly in the gut, all while monologuing to keep Leraje distracted from it. If he can bleed, then Leraje does, and if not, he still feels the time passing through him even faster, his components falling to pieces, and then pieces more, over and over, until he is naught but sandy dust floating in the wind of a dead world. "The lone and level sands" Smirk says as a shimmering green portal appears, pulling out Leraje back to the 'real world' "Stretch far away" as he too returns.
(Third Action: )
Smirk then looks over to the Arbiter.
"Heya. How are you? Also, any idea what the heck happened to blow up the worlds? I'm not quite that up to speed on Voidic History to know the greatest hits of 'times Alethea averted omnicide', but apparently there was at least one, and either BADAM just made the biggest shot of Balefire to ever Balefire, or it was recent."
He then begins to draw some blueprints in midair. They disappear as he makes the next symbol, but anyone with a degree in transchrono spacioparadoxic reality would instantly recognize the symbols, if not the specific context.

 

[FlamingFlapjacks]

Well, there is not a Descendant here.
..ok, perhaps that's a bit misleading. There's quite clearly someone standing there, in- If you squint, really focus, a black hood. But beyond that, this person seems to be just so.. incredibly not. There's something around them, a aura clinging to them, that makes it impossible to pick out any one feature of them as they stand there. Staring at them picks out no features, nothing one would mark down as noticeable. What's up with this?

"I'm just a Descended." The not-figure says simply. That makes sense, thinks anyone watching. They're just one of the many Descended- a reality warper, one of a horde. They should pay them no mind. There's nothing to see here. And just like that, a moment passes- With the attention of any watchers fading, and a second later any memories of the weird nothing-figure going as well, as they casually stand there and regard the battlefield.

They tilt their head, and regard the Arbiter. A fellow void-fellow! Interesting. With a nod to their similar ally, they calmly walk across the field, glancing at the assembled evils and picking out.. Labolas. They just.. walk up to the thing, staring up at them.

"Let's see." Raising a hand, a swirling blackness envelops them for a moment, highlighting their vision in black and white. The absence of information fades, warps away, highlighting something with nothing.
[PB][ELITE] Labolas. 60/90 Hp. Immune to Magic.
They tilt their head and nod. "Elite. 60/90, 1/3rd down. Immune.. to magic. Hm. I can work with that part." They stare up at Labolas.
"Immune to magic. Now, what does that mean? Are you a believer in the sciences? Perhaps it's the Elemental definition. Anti-magic field? Hm, hm." The figure concentrates for a moment, and simply snaps their fingers, with no audible sound coming as they snap. They then take a step back.
..and Labolas feels something suddenly wrap around them, a aura suddenly enveloping their every step. Not magic- of course not! They're immune to that!- But then, what is it? Maybe they glance around- But there's nothing to be seen. It's a invisible force, suddenly eating away at their being.
"It's not magic."
"Literally. A absence of magic, taken on form. Not sure how exactly it works, but it's a neat party trick." The figure takes another few steps back, and sits down cross-legged, casually watching Labolas be attacked. Snapping their fingers again, the lack of magic intensifies- Grows stronger and stronger, Labolas' immunity to magic suddenly becoming a detriment as it grows more.. powerful? They can hear whispers, logic flying around. Immune to magic. The void of magic. What is magic? Light? Elements? Reality can seem quite magical. What does it mean? The void grows stronger and stronger, and Labolas finds the world vanishing around them in bits- Air? That's a Element! Magical. Light, that's clearly magical as well, have you seen how many sun gods there are? The ground? Mother Earth definitely isn't a robot.

The curse of antimagic continues to assault them, as the figure just watches, occasionally glancing back over to Adam.

 

[DCCCV]

Record of Time: State.

I do some preservation work recording the defined state of 'the Arbiter is currently one person in one position' so it can be recalled to if necessary. If whatever's going on here is not worth it, then we should increase the value we get out of it regardless.

Nedben is Nedben as usual. Altrin remains, certainly.

Click to shrink...

I become one step more physical. More present. More p̷̡̢͉̰̮̪͎̞̝̠̩̬̞̤̙̔̔̍̒͑͒͠ở̶̭͎̻̰͔͉̩̠͗͌̎͑͐̀̄́̍̏͠͝w̶̧̨̫͚̮͙̻͚̻͙̎ͅé̷̩̱̣̮̍͆̾̉͘̚͝ȓ̷͚͚̝̰͕͒̋̓̋͝ͅf̵̨̠̯̩̦̥͓͙̙̱́͐̽͜u̴̟̟͚̬̹͎͇̺̅̉̂͑͑́̄l̵̛̛͍͈̖̫̅̋̈́̄̉̑̾̇͝ͅ.

Thank you!

The world turns in concentric circles. The future ceases to recall the recent past. The threads of fate unravel and are fed inch by inch into the fire, the smoke forming quasifractal patterns, the rules for their construction devolving from inconsistent to hateful as they unfold into the dark. Fire augury is not a practice unknown to Alan, but it is not one within the traditions of Order. Nevertheless, the visions come, like shrapnel-filled water down the parched throat of a desperate nuclear survivor. Alan had heard once that the ruler of Earth had the whole of the universe reflected in his glasses. He had no idea it would be so bright.

Alan blinks, his pupils shifting focus to try to escape the light, and the world before him shifts with him, revealing itself to be nothing but the imprints left on the retinas of one who stares directly at the sun. It discolors into fluorescent greenish yellow-purple, flickering and drifting and fading out until there is no sun and there are no stars and there are no spinning fractals and golden spirals beneath the corners of every shape and there is no music to be found in the ticking of the gears of the machinery of night, only the silent order of an unremembered grave and the perturbations in the air made by the still-breathing corpse.

Alan tries to open his mouth to tell the Arbiter he's here. But instead what comes out is the only words he can find to describe how he feels.

ALAN: Something is terribly wrong.

He staggers towards the nearest wall, half-leans half-falls against it, and, leaning heavily on his staff, vomits on the floor.

-----

ALAN: Adam, can you hear me?
ALAN: Wait, can you even talk right now, or only highlight? Here, let me make this a statement.
ALAN: Adam can hear my words.
ALAN: I'm going to talk like that's true, because I don't know what I'll do if I don't.
ALAN: Adam, do you- Statements. I need to give you statements.
ALAN: Adam can see the universe reflected in his glasses.
ALAN: It hurts to look at.
ALAN: Nothing like this - like whatever Badam did to the timeline - has ever happened before.
ALAN: There are no stars left. This place is all there is.
ALAN: This place was artificially constructed to try to keep some form of life alive.
ALAN: This came to pass because Alethea killed or otherwise incapacitated someone who would otherwise have brought it about.
ALAN: This came to pass because if Alethea had not become a Godmodder someone else would have and they would have been even worse.
ALAN: This could still come to pass if we are not careful in how we oppose Alethea.
ALAN: This timeline is one you knew could have come to pass.
ALAN: The above fact influenced your position with regards to the [AG] faction.
ALAN: Alternatively, you have no idea how this happened.
ALAN: And on another note... Ipos, Leraje and Labolas are in some sense part of Badam.
ALAN: In order to defeat Badam, we need to figure out some weakness of his by receiving confirmations from you.
ALAN: Badam's weaknesses are unknown to you, but you believe the information you possess is sufficient to figure it out.
ALAN: You do not know any specific weaknesses of Badam, but you believe you know the correct angle of attack.
ALAN: You do not know Badam's weaknesses at all.
ALAN: You are unable to directly communicate information on some or all of the above topic, only highlight statements.
ALAN: You are unable to directly communicate at all.
ALAN: You made it through alright.
ALAN: The more I keep talking the less I'm thinking about what just happened.
ALAN: If we defeat Badam, things will go back to normal.
ALAN: If we defeat Badam, there will be a way to set this right.
ALAN: Something is terribly wrong.

Alan catches his breath, vomits again, and then begins the process of catching his breath all over as he looks around at the environment in which he is now.

-----

Actions 1 + 2 + 3 + 2 Charge:

Alan hauls himself the rest of the way to his feet. His pupils have expanded to twice their normal size, and his cornea appears cracked like glass. Cracked grid-lines flicker on the floor with each step. His arms hang too heavily on his shoulders as he hefts his staff.

ALAN: Lines of Separation, First Form.

He flicks his staff one-handed across Leraje's body, left to right, the blow scarcely making contact but tracing a line along which matter inclines itself towards separation. He follows it up with a palm heel strike to Leraje's stomach, a shock-wave rippling through their form and exploiting the induced weakness to part them like rain on a watershed flowing to different oceans.

ALAN: Second Form: Imposition of Internal Alignment.

Leraje is knocked back by the blow, but a moment later, Alan is upon him again, staff spinning around to strike from different angles, each blow shooting lines of pain through their body as Order magic pierces them. Spinning it so fast it appears to be a perfect circle, they drag these magical after-images into alignment, rotating and translating the once haphazard lines until they all intersect in the exact center of Leraje's mass with equal angles between them, dragging their blood and organs with them, Alan's imposition of order overwriting the normal construction of their body.

ALAN: Enforced Conservation of Energy.

With a flick of his hand, Alan shifts his staff from in front of him to beside him, its tips moving towards Leraje at the top and away from him at the bottom. He lowers it slightly, and the tip catches the floor, its energy transferring in a perfectly elastic manner, the staff stopping in place and standing perfectly upright on end as Alan is launched forward with equal momentum and kinetic energy, twisting in midair to connect the center of Leraje's mass with a flying kick.

ALAN: Third Form: Flower-Petal Fractions.

Alan stops dead and drops straight down to the floor as all of his kinetic energy is in turn transferred directly to Leraje. Leraje's body splits into perfect sixteenths as the energy radiates outward, tearing him apart along the lines Alan drove into him, plumes of white Order energy erupting from the ends of each line segment like shimmering petals.

ALAN: Fourth Form: Fatal Flaw Excision.

Rolling to his feet, Alan claps his palms together and closes his eyes, taking in the patterns in the mist of Order now suffusing the area, feeling it flow back into him as sonar-waves to discern Leraje's most vulnerable points. The connective structure of his body reveals itself to Alan, its bones and joints and the planes along which they tend to split, the pressures and stresses put on it by its breathing and pumping of fluids and how those can best be exploited, the ways in which something...

something...

something in the edge of his vision...

something is terribly wrong.

ALAN: Everything's so badly broken... I can't even look at it...

Alan blinks frantically, spits blood, and collapses to the ground.

Click to shrink...

[Something is terribly wrong.]
can you hear me?
only highlight
Adam can hear my words.
Adam can see the universe reflected in his glasses.
It hurts to look at.
Nothing like this - like whatever Badam did to the timeline - has ever happened before.
There are no stars left. This place is all there is.
This came to pass because Alethea killed or otherwise incapacitated someone who would otherwise have brought it about.
Alternatively, you have no idea how this happened.
And on another note... Ipos, Leraje and Labolas are in some sense part of Badam.
In order to defeat Badam, we need to figure out some weakness of his by receiving confirmations from you.
You do not know any specific weaknesses of Badam, but you believe you know the correct angle of attack.
You are unable to directly communicate information on some or all of the above topic, only highlight statements.
The more I keep talking the less I'm thinking about what just happened.
If we defeat Badam, things will go back to normal.
If we defeat Badam, there will be a way to set this right.
Something is terribly wrong.
[Something is terribly wrong.]

Oh good, Adam's still here. You were very thorough with this. Thank you.
That being said, a reminder: Adam is only highlighting what he believes to be true to his knowledge.

Acting as if of it's own volition, your Order Magic breaks down Leraje's body on contact. Paired with your own actions, you blast away his physical form, reducing him to a bloody wraith of clotted willpower. Boosted 35 Damage.
Did you see that? In his shards, before they melted away. Leraje's bones were hollow, his muscles all but wasted away.
What happened to him?

"I don't suppose I'm late to the party?"

A Sylveon in a Cowboy Outfit enters from stage right.

"If that itinerary is right this BADAM fella has a bounty... and I'm here to collect."

A tumbleweed passes by from nowhere...

The Sylveon holds out a silvery coin, flipping it into the air... it vanishes with a glint.

ACTION 1: Spend the 25 Charge token to summon a Gang of 5 Bounty Hunters

A group of five Bounty Hunters wielding rifles and mounted on Horses appear in a line next to the Sylveon.

"Saddle up boys! We're gonna get paid!"

ACTION 2/3: Gun down Labolas with help from the Bounty Hunters

There's a thunder of hooves as the Bounty Hunters spread out, and unified cracks as the Bounty Hunters fire nigh-simultaneously, The Sylveon using the distraction of the other Bounty Hunters to close the distance between himself and Labolas, revealing a double barrel shotgun only to promptly unload it into Labolas's center, attempting to deal as much damage as possible.

Charge: 20/25

Click to shrink...

Welcome! You bring in the Bounty Hunters, and together you fill Labolas with lead for 14 damage! Is that lead? I hope it's lead.
Bounty Hunter. 10,000/10,000 Hp. Horse: 20,000 Hp.
ACTION(Gun): 10,000 Piercing.
PASSIVE(Horse): [.. .... . . ... .. .... ..... ... ... . .... . ..... .... .. .. .. .... .. ... .... .... ..... ... ... . ....]

As reality is rewritten, the one known as Lusiix is... not erased, per say. Rather, he is simply replaced with someone else. Whether or not the mechanical man is still out there somewhere, he is no longer here, and where he otherwise would've been in this place known as Xanadu is...

---

>ACTION 1: The one known as Leraje suddenly finds themselves feeling rather blue. Literally. They have turned blue, and as a result they feel themselves being pushed into the ground, as if gravity itself had suddenly turned on them. Behind Leraje is the source of this affliction: some kind of anthropomorphic goat woman, with a fluffy coat of light-grey fur, a curly mane of "hair" atop her head, two floppy ears which go down just past her shoulders, and two short horns the same color as her fur. Her clothes are, quite simply, plain, consisting of an open green plaid jacket, a red tank-top visible underneath, and a blue skirt which stretches down to halfway between her knees and ankles. Her right arm is outstretched towards Leraje, palm facing downwards as if pushing them down from afar. As she does this, the irises of her eyes glow an unnatural shade of Dark Blue.

As the goat woman exerts her magic upon Leraje, she turns her gaze towards Badam.

????: So you're the one responsible for... whatever this is?
????: I dunno what's going on here, but I can tell you have something to do with... whatever happened to this place.
????: Well then, I guess I'll just have to help stop you, then!

>ACTIONS 2+3: Seeing the Sylveon and the Bounty Hunters going after Labolas, the goat woman decides to follow up their attack by thrusting her outstretched arm towards the [ELITE] entity. In an instant, Leraje is suddenly sent flying towards Labolas with double the force that was previously forcing them into the ground, doubtless knocking both of Badam's lackeys the the ground.

That done, the woman turns towards some of the others who are not clearly aligned with Badam, in this case the Arbiter, Eris, the Hierarch of Void, and Alan. Not that she knows any of those names, but the point is she turns her gaze towards them and waves with her free hand.

????: Uh, hey there, you guys!
JUNE: Name's June, nice to meet you!
JUNE: So uh... what the actual fuck is going on? Did I just attack a guy for no reason? Where even are we anyway?

Click to shrink...

As you increase the pull of gravity on Leraje, spectral chains pointing from his body straight downwards flash into view. As they shatter, Leraje rises back to his feet unhindered. As you attempt to throw them, another chain that connects Leraje to Labolas manifests, cracking but remaining intact. Leraje slams into Labolas, dealing 7 damage to both of them. At the same time, they combine together. A new composite entity stands in their place. Leraje-Labolas? I suppose that's their name now. This could be very interesting indeed.

Hey June! Don't worry about him, he's not actually real. It's complicated! I'm not actually allowed to explain, but you're doing a good job! You did the right thing there!

Xorm gets... side-shunted from reality again. This time, it wasn't even him doing it!
But one thing's for sure.

[22 Charge + 3 Actions: That's a Damn Fine Gun.]

Xorm, knowing full well he's an interdimensional criminal, went through some efforts to sort of... link some goods to his soul. The double-barrelled shotgun now in his hands is one of them. It's seen days, nights, and weird no-time-periods of use, and it's a reliable tool of flesh-hole-opening. And he hides it between universes just for situations like this.

There's no magic. No space-tech. No epic story behind it.

Just faith in its past, that it may carry him into the future.

[[Assuming I *can* use my 22 Charge from the REDACTED timeline, drop it all on an Artifact with "Really hard to steal" and pure, honest, raw damage output. Call it... "Devil's Hand."]]

Click to shrink...

You call your shotgun!
[A] Devil's Hand. Shells Loaded: 2/2. Maximum Capacity: 2. Total Shells: 6.
ACTIONS:
Reload: Bonus Action. Sets number of shells loaded in Devil's Hand to it's maximum capacity.
Poke: Can be used twice in a round, consumes 1 Shell each use. Free Action.
Extra Finger: Increases Devil's Hand's Maximum Capacity by 1. Prevents any other action involving Devil's Hand.

A man cartwheels diagonally down from the sky and lands head to the ground and feet in the air. He seems to be dripping a cyan liquid which perfectly reflects his face and nothing else.
"Hey! Where'd You all come from? wait, wait, I can figure this out! Okay, so one of you normally doesn't have physical form I have no idea what's up with that but the shouty lad said something about New memories and then timelines so I guess you're from the present advancement state of the meta-preceding state of the timeline with the current time being the meta-final state of the present of the timeline! At least, if I trust inferences from the shouty one. It sounds like the meta-preceding state had more than one world- or well, more than two worlds? depends what you mean by world- and is better in some way? or at least physical body man thinks so after half a second of being here which is Awfully quick to make a judgement about how good the world is! I mean, this world has Me in it! I bet the other world didn't! So, objectively speaking, this is the superior option."
[1x] I take a minute to review my memory of the past several years to figure out the most likely point of divergence and cause for the thingys that happened as inferred above and whatnot.

[1x] Hm, it sounds like it's not certain for everyone to make it through this time-whimmy thing! I'd better make sure I Do- I mean, I'm just so awesome. I compartmentalise a copy of my entire memory and personality, then send it back in time to the location of my homeworld, several years before the point of divergence identified above! I also set up continuous updates to keep it up to date as time passes!

[1x] I may not know who's fighting who or why in much detail but I do know that when in doubt, collect power! This 'Heirarch of Void' guy seems like a positive fellow! That is, it's literally one of the only things I know about him! {{{OOC: I know it's a holdover from the Tinia fight}}} But even a positive fellow like him probably needs a few seconds to figure out how to interpret the destruction of presumably many worlds indeed in a positive light! I mean, he doesn't know me well enough to know how amazing I am!
While he's busy figuring that out and being shocked, I steal all his valuables, invaluables, nonvaluables, and his left kidney- I mean, he doesn't really Need it, does he?- through various means including telekinesis, really long arms, magnets(who knows how magnets work?), sleight of hand(The trick is to direct their attention to somewhere other than where the trick is! This is easy, because I'm so amazing and also they're busy grappling with time travel!), and time magic (I freeze the parts I'm stealing, relatively to the orbit of my homeworld, causing them to go flying faster than a bullet)! Who knows how valuable vlauables, invaluables, nonvaluables, and kidneys from an alternate timeline would be? I don't!

Click to shrink...

Let's see, what do we remember?
It was around three or four years ago. One day, every single universe sank into the Void and started melting away. Xanadu appeared in your sky. BADAM touched down and as people began to kneel and praise him, he said that he would take 10,000,000 aboard. Taking 10,000,000 microbes from a jar of yeast and left. The people continued to kneel where they stood, even as they were eaten by the Void. He did this to every other Universe he came across. After going to around a few hundred Universes, BADAM stopped, and let the things he let aboard fend for themselves.

When we met, you told me you stayed to watch what happened.
You told me you fought and were eaten by something you weren't able to describe to me. Either you couldn't say it's name, or I couldn't hear it.

But wait. You can send a copy of yourself into the past? Why didn't we try that before?
Nevermind, just do it. Let's just find out now.

Wow, it actually worked! We're in the past! You see your Past Self doing things just as the world suddenly plunges into the Darkness of the Void. You see Xanadu appear in the sky, an entire planet larger than earth. It shimmers with a blood-red haze as swarms of spaceships touch down and nanotech elevators grow onto the surface of your planet, beckoning people to come in.
BADAM laughs as shoots down these ships with finger guns. As he leaves with his yeast, he breaks apart the elevators, preventing anyone inside from getting onto Xanadu.

You stay there in stunned silence. Finally, it comes. It's time to see-
What. Is. That.

You take everything from the Hierarch of Void. That is to say, you rob him blind. You take his sylladex, and wow. That's a lot of treasure inside. It seems he's just picked up stuff people have lost everywhere! There's nothing really of worth here though. You've taken everything from the Hierarch of Void, including his clothes. Now he's invisible too.

Finally. The gods alone could know how long it'd been searching, were they not slain long ago. But finally, Kslrk's mission reaches its finale, face to face with the creature that is both final foe and ultimate reward. Spoken of in dying tongues around fragile fires by the few who live to tell tales while tending hearths.
The world's biggest Dorito.
But famished as Kslrk is, it can restrain themselves from foolish action. No point in getting greedy when that risks predator becoming prey.
Appetizers first.

Kslrk slithers through the subtle cracks in the firmament below* Labolas until an opportunity presents itself. Suddenly it does, in the form of a six gun salute aimed right at the bugger's... well, everything.
Kslrk leaps- or falls- onto Labolas in a sudden flurry of razor-thin, proboscis-asjacent appendages. Each one snakes violently into a bullet hole and attaches to Labolas on a conceptual level.
Kslabolasrk commits a vile act of self-cannibalism, draining the existential stability from the Formerly-Labolas to the inscrutable, Formerly-Kslrk.
Kslabolasrk is grappling Kslabolasrk, and eating its itness.

Click to shrink...

...What was that? Something seems to be merging with the Labolas part of Leraje-Labolas, and is eating it from the inside.
Was I supposed to have trouble identifying the two of them? I can talk about mys-the toaster just fine.
This is nothing compared to m-the toaster.
They like doritoes, we'll get along perfectly!

For no reason in particular, John trips over his own feet, sending himself falling forward as his feet chase his balance. His eyes track the ground as it shifts beneath him, the fabric of space shoving him forth to the big boat everybody's calling Xanadu. His arms wave out at his sides as he keeps his balance. And John laughs. He turns to look at Badam and says, "Oh man! That was great! Man, Adam must be-" John stops himself mid-sentence, looking at his empty hand. "But- wha- Oh, come on Badam! Just when I was gonna have some fun. Gosh, man." He shakes his head, disappointed in Badam. "I swear I wasn't going to stab you with it yet. And don't tell me about 'causality' or whatever. That was a conscious choice to get rid of my cool sword. That's a party fowl there." John sighs. He raises his empty palm to Badam. "No, don't worry about it, Badam my boy. We're still buddies." John smiles. "Especially because you can tell me this:

"Adam is so pissed at me right now.
"Wait wait wait. I've got a better one. Adam is sooooo mad I broke his hand.
"Oh, and he's REALLY angry I stole his hilt. He seemed emotionally attached to that thing.
"Last thing! Last thing! I totally stole Adam's plan! Adam was gonna do that. Yeah, I stole his thunder. He can't lie to me."

John looks to the empty sky and laughs aloud. He scratches the spikes of his mohawk and faces Badam once more. His head slowly rocks back and forth. He points a finger at Badam and continues. "Man, dude. Why do you have to do this to me? I'm pretty sure I know what Answer that was, and you know I've got to get it back." John closes his eyes, fighting back what he knows he has to do. "Badam, man, I promise you this. Once this is over, you've got a spot in L.O.S.S.. Whatever you want, buddy. I think you'd do great vocals, but I can easily see you on lead guitar. Or piano, you know. Seems right up your alley." John's head continues to shake, dejected. "Really Badam, I want to play some music to mark this occasion, but I just can't seem to pick the right song. I'll do my best to finish what you started, buddy. I just- Here. This'll do."

John raises his hand, and a microphone drops from the sky. Above, his speaker platform remains dormant as it starts to play the middle verse of John's life. A tear drips from his darkly shadowed eyes, and his pierced lips open to sing.

"And I've got nothing to say.
"I can't believe I didn't fall right down on my face."
In his voice, the speaker whispers, "I was confused."
"Looking everywhere only to find
"That it's not the way I imagined it all in my mind."
"So what am I?" Faint purple light glows around John.
"What do I have but negativity
"'Cause I can't justify the way everyone is looking at me."
"Nothing to lose." The purple light laces around his forearms.
"Nothing to gain, hollow and alone.
"And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own."

The song pauses for a moment, and John steps away from Badam, mist spilling from his black leather boots. John's alignment tag turns gray for a moment, before glowing bright red. [AG], it reads. John turns away from Badam, his buddy, turning to face Ipos, his destined foe.

FOCUS Action (Again, short summary at the bottom): A cruel smile curves across John's faintly yellow teeth. He flicks his tongue out, taunting Ipos. Badam's bonding fire suddenly flares around his body, a bright aura flowing around his body as he continues to sing.

"I wanna heal! I wanna feel! What I thought was never real!
"I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long!"
Above them, the speaker hisses, "Erase all the pain 'till it's gone." Bright spotlights shine down from it, forming a false moon over the desperate Ark. Mist continues to spill from John's feet, as dim metal fences spike up at a distance around himself and Ipos. Frost green grass sprouts on the ground around them as headstones rumble from deep below. Behind Ipos, an old monument from an erased world rises: the form of a man in a flowing black suit, sitting on his wide, pillared throne of democracy. Faint lights begin to dot the black, featureless sky as John approaches Ipos.
"I wanna heal!" he screams, the purple fire around John roaring as his arms reach out and grab Ipos. The chromatic heat runs down John's fingers, quickly connecting with a deep essence within Ipos.
"I wanna feel!" The two forces meld on the surface of Ipos's skin, rushing to the surface in the same purple form as John's. The two are enveloped in the fire, the same bond they shared just a turn before. Within, it is nothing but a chain, binding them to the great Builder. But manifested, its potential is raw, untamed.
"Like I'm close to something real!" John sings.
"I want to find something I've wanted all along." His grip tightens around Ipos as the flames continue to merge.
"Somewhere I belong."
In an instant, the fire around John turns green, a sick inversion of Adam's clan. John lets go of Ipos and leaps backwards, the steel tips of his boots digging into the thin soil of the dead park. He stands tall, slowly circling around Ipos as he yells,
"I will never know! Myself until I do this on my own!
"And I will never feel! Anything else until my wounds are healed!"
John throws his open hand forward, and the green fire sprays from his fingers. It flies at a wide angle toward Ipos, wrapping him in its dancing coil, brushing against Ipos's flesh as it squeezes against his own purple light. As the flames flow from John's hand, the aura around him seems to dim. Acting quickly, John sings,
"I will never be! Anything 'till I break away from me!
"I will break away! I'll find myself today!"
The green fire around Ipos squeezes tight, crushing the purple flames that protect him. Ipos can feel the green heat against his whole body, flowing against him as it breaks his guard. For a sickening moment, John stops singing, just smiling at Ipos as the music sprinkles like rain around them. Then, with a thunderous beat, John bangs his head and finishes,
"I wanna heal! I wanna feel! What I thought was never real!
"I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long!"
John throws his hand up, and the green fire breaks away from him, rising into the air, flying on its freedom. "Erase all the pain 'till it's gone," John whispers as the green fire pulls against Ipos's purple, trying to fly. The green grips heavily against the purple of Ipos's soul, tearing it away from his very being. As the green continues to rise toward the false moon, so too does the purple flame. As Ipos's connection to it is severed, he begins to feel weak, alone. Within himself, Ipos screams, trying to grapple at the purpose of his soul. But it is no use. The green fire is too bold, too filled with rage. With a snap, the body of purple fire flies from Ipos, soaring upward into the void with John's green.

Watching this, John smiles. Almost calm, he sings the last of the song as though in reflection. "I wanna heal, I wanna feel, like I'm close to something real. I wanna find something I've wanted all along. Somewhere I belong."

John ends the song there, pausing to breathe as he nods to himself. "Sorry Badam," he whispers to himself. "[AG] is where I belong."

TL;DR: Try to rip a vaguely Badam-related part of Ipos's soul out with graveyard fire and alignment magic. And rejoin [AG]. We can all stop thinking about shooting me now.

Click to shrink...

"RELAX, MOHAWK. YOU'LL GET YOUR SWORD BACK."

You rip out what's BADAM from Ipos. The demon begins to convulse on the floor, squirming about as it takes on a new form. It becomes... Adam?

"HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK AT ME, I'M ADAM MASON, AND I'VE SEEN THE FUTURE!"
What.
"HAH! I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO SAY 'WHAT' BECAUSE I'VE SEEN THE FUTURE! I RULE PLANET EARTH AND I LOVE HUMANITY! WHAT'S THAT? NON-HUMANS? I CAN SEE THAT IN THE FUTURE, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!"
Adam? summons a Time Sword. As in, it's a sword with TIME written on it. As he takes his first step, he falls over.
"BET YOU DIDN'T EXPECT THAT! I KNEW YOU WEREN'T EXPECTING THAT I'M A PARAPLEGIC, BECAUSE I'VE SEEN THE FUTURE!"
...
This is not the Adam we've been speaking to.
...Phew. Glad that's established at least.

Smirk had not even began to really get into the match when the Neutral ground had an intruder. He instantly stasised the monitor, and had, moving as quickly as he could, tried to move to stop BADAM, but the Balefire was too quick, and by the time he had even began to form a coherent action to try to fight it, he was already feeling the waves of energy from the entirety of reality bending, the fire apparently having more pure reality warping than even Alethea, as all of reality shifts, pulls, tears apart and rewrites itself to its whim, that of a single item erased years prior. As all this happens, Smirk thinks 'if Adam isn't already dead when this is over, I'll have to kill him myself for not having his stupid Time Police prepped for this.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then Smirk wakes up in another body. It is like his own, but in a ragged trenchcoat, and with a quick check of his pocket dimensions, he finds a distinct lack of setup, implying reality was indeed altered significantly. For Pete's sake, even his full replica of the modern kingdom of Ozymandias, complete with rewind functionality, was missing. Either this version of him was significantly dumber up until now, he hadn't been able to use reality warping prior, or he'd been preoccupied in this timeline. Whichever it is, he'd have to figure it out later, first thing's first, he needed to figure out what happened to this universe.
(First action: )
First thing's first, he scans the void beyond the world quickly, seeing if the easy way works. He also tugs on reality just right to make a reasonably large pile of dirt appear far away from the radius of this world, but still within observable distance, so that he could see if whatever the cause was is perpetual, or temporary, because if the latter, he already had a thought in mind.
(Second action: )
"Adam, if you're still around here, I've got a few quick questions to run through on Badam's henchmen, or rather, statements.
Labolas is a Blue Mage,
Leraje is a Knight,
Ipos is a Ninja
all three the variations from 8 bit Theater, for the record, except the Blue Mage being the variation Black Mage thought it would be.
If not, I'm outta immediate ideas, but you have to start somewhere."
He then proceeds to out of nowhere teleport straight up to Leraje, his fist grabbing him in a chokehold, and then both of them vanish.

Suddenly, Leraje finds himself in the middle of a great city, towering buildings, gleaming infrastructure, glistening gardens, the works. Good food, animals, anything one could feasibly need to consider it a paradise. As he explores more, he would find the entire city operated and maintained by robots, large or small, rushing to and fro to keep the city active. At the center of the city, there stands a statue of a man, wearing a regal attire, standing before all, with a stern, commanding frown on his face.
And on the pedestal the statue is bore upon, these words can be read:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Perhaps Leraje knows what this means, perhaps not. It matters little, for he suddenly feels a shift upon the reading of them. The world around him seems to suddenly, abruptly, begin to decay, robots losing charge or being broken down beyond repair. Buildings crumpling under their own weight, gardens picked up by the winds and sent waywards. All around him he would see this horror, but does he care? Who knows. What can be told, however, is that time is no projectile, it is a function, and as Leraje sits there he can feel it enacting itself upon him. Decay, rot, ages and ages of it, all around him turning to sand as he sits there, feeling eons go by in what feels like moments, with both sun and moon flinging themselves around in a mad dash across the heavens. From this, Smirk's voice suddenly booms down, quoting a poem Verbatim:
'I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."'
Pausing, he then becomes visible before Leraje, seemingly unaffected by the same temporal effects plaguing the demon, for some reason wearing a full suit and tie, in spite of the dust swirling around them. "I am reminded of that poem, by what BADAM just did. Here I was, convinced I was going to fix everything, and then there it all went, time and space folded inwards, all my work down the drain in an instant. Now I don't know if you are a part of BADAM, just a shield, whatever, but I hope very much it's the first one, so that some piece of him can feel this as well. It gives a sensation of a stab in the gut, wouldn't you agree"
Leraje would then look down, and see that while talking, keeping his face calm until the word "stab", Smirk had managed to create a spear out of raw temporum, and stabbed him cleanly in the gut, all while monologuing to keep Leraje distracted from it. If he can bleed, then Leraje does, and if not, he still feels the time passing through him even faster, his components falling to pieces, and then pieces more, over and over, until he is naught but sandy dust floating in the wind of a dead world. "The lone and level sands" Smirk says as a shimmering green portal appears, pulling out Leraje back to the 'real world' "Stretch far away" as he too returns.
(Third Action: )
Smirk then looks over to the Arbiter.
"Heya. How are you? Also, any idea what the heck happened to blow up the worlds? I'm not quite that up to speed on Voidic History to know the greatest hits of 'times Alethea averted omnicide', but apparently there was at least one, and either BADAM just made the biggest shot of Balefire to ever Balefire, or it was recent."
He then begins to draw some blueprints in midair. They disappear as he makes the next symbol, but anyone with a degree in transchrono spacioparadoxic reality would instantly recognize the symbols, if not the specific context.

Click to shrink...

The Void outside Xanadu isn't actually empty. It's full, just with... something else. The dirt you manifest is quickly swept away in the darkness, dissolving into the currents outside.
...
Did you see that? Something just swept by.
There's something outside.

You drag Leraje out of Leraje-Labolas and age him through Egypt, causing him to regenerate back some semblance of a body, which you then stab to deal 4 damage to. As he exits the portal, he ends up disembodied yet again, ouch.
...Hold up. The same dung beetle chased by a serpent is in this simulation as well.
...Someone else was also here. Did you see them? Spacesuit. Blacked out Visor. Burning with Indigo Fire.
It's Among Us.

Hey Smirk. I'm enoying being physical again, at least. As for what happened, I don't know what destroyed everything. I just snuck onto Xanadu and lived incognito with JOE in this timeline.
...Did I really drink nothing but Cups of JOE that entire time? Wow.

Well, there is not a Descendant here.
..ok, perhaps that's a bit misleading. There's quite clearly someone standing there, in- If you squint, really focus, a black hood. But beyond that, this person seems to be just so.. incredibly not. There's something around them, a aura clinging to them, that makes it impossible to pick out any one feature of them as they stand there. Staring at them picks out no features, nothing one would mark down as noticeable. What's up with this?

"I'm just a Descended." The not-figure says simply. That makes sense, thinks anyone watching. They're just one of the many Descended- a reality warper, one of a horde. They should pay them no mind. There's nothing to see here. And just like that, a moment passes- With the attention of any watchers fading, and a second later any memories of the weird nothing-figure going as well, as they casually stand there and regard the battlefield.

They tilt their head, and regard the Arbiter. A fellow void-fellow! Interesting. With a nod to their similar ally, they calmly walk across the field, glancing at the assembled evils and picking out.. Labolas. They just.. walk up to the thing, staring up at them.

"Let's see." Raising a hand, a swirling blackness envelops them for a moment, highlighting their vision in black and white. The absence of information fades, warps away, highlighting something with nothing.
[PB][ELITE] Labolas. 60/90 Hp. Immune to Magic.
They tilt their head and nod. "Elite. 60/90, 1/3rd down. Immune.. to magic. Hm. I can work with that part." They stare up at Labolas.
"Immune to magic. Now, what does that mean? Are you a believer in the sciences? Perhaps it's the Elemental definition. Anti-magic field? Hm, hm." The figure concentrates for a moment, and simply snaps their fingers, with no audible sound coming as they snap. They then take a step back.
..and Labolas feels something suddenly wrap around them, a aura suddenly enveloping their every step. Not magic- of course not! They're immune to that!- But then, what is it? Maybe they glance around- But there's nothing to be seen. It's a invisible force, suddenly eating away at their being.
"It's not magic."
"Literally. A absence of magic, taken on form. Not sure how exactly it works, but it's a neat party trick." The figure takes another few steps back, and sits down cross-legged, casually watching Labolas be attacked. Snapping their fingers again, the lack of magic intensifies- Grows stronger and stronger, Labolas' immunity to magic suddenly becoming a detriment as it grows more.. powerful? They can hear whispers, logic flying around. Immune to magic. The void of magic. What is magic? Light? Elements? Reality can seem quite magical. What does it mean? The void grows stronger and stronger, and Labolas finds the world vanishing around them in bits- Air? That's a Element! Magical. Light, that's clearly magical as well, have you seen how many sun gods there are? The ground? Mother Earth definitely isn't a robot.

The curse of antimagic continues to assault them, as the figure just watches, occasionally glancing back over to Adam.

Click to shrink...

Hey there! Haven't I seen you bef-oh.
It's you.
Antimagic assaults Leraje-Labolas. But rather than being eaten away, they begin to grow. Leraje-Labolas cannot, will not be destroyed by the Void.
Because that's what it's made of.
Sprouting a pair of dark wings, Leraje-Labolas attempts to convert the world around it into magic. Chains identical to those used by Leraje erupt from the ground. Many disintegrate as they make contact, but enough pierce it's body to pin Leraje-Labolas down onto the ground. Leraje begins to fight back against these chains with chains of their own, burning holes through the ground in an effort to dig out whatever's beneath.

---

BADAM's Twilight Providence holds. As phantom gears begin to turn around his arms, a portion of BADAM's aura solidifies into bulky vented suit of armor before him.

"HEY, ENGIE? WHAT DOES THIS READ, 'REFILL ONLY WITH OBLIVION?' TRY AND STOP ME NOW!"

Placing his hand on what can only be an Engietech Drone, BADAM animates it with a portion of his gold energy.

Adam, formerly Ipos warps time to bring in what seems to be a past self!
"LOOK AT ME, I'M YOUNGER ADAM! YOU CAN TELL BY THE FACT I CAN WALK! I CAN SEE THE FUTURE TOO!

Leraje-Kslabolasrk begins work on summoning a new entity. Leraje begins to weave with flesh and grows a new body from the earth, while Leraje sculpts a set of heavy armour and a greatsword.
...Wait a minute, this looks famili-oh.
Null.

Opening his eyes, Nikolai picks up his sword and with one smooth strike removes Leraje and Kslrk from Labolas, who sheds physical form and merges with him instead. Turning around, he faces BADAM.
"I wake in a changed reality. Is this your doing?"
"OH, YEAH."
"And my son? Where is Miles?"
"WHO? OH, HIM. HE'S TWENTY-ONE POINT SIX MILLION FEET UNDER."
"Thank you."

Nikolai-Labolas begins to bodyguard itself. Please don't ask me how this works, I don't care. Please help me kill this man again.

The betrayed Kslerajerk takes 6 damage. Whether that's from Nikolai, the pain of betrayal, or eating himself, I don't really know.

The Hierarch of Void notices and grabs Eris. He then turns around and-
"I see you."
As he gets ahold of me as well, he removes the Void from us.
"Why are you fighting? Do you even understand what this timeline is? This is a world of illumination. Of certainty. This is what I've always wanted, what the other Void Gods never had. And now it's just us. The last three Void Gods, all in one place. I kill you two, and all will be clear."
BADAM applauds. "OH, WHAT A TWIST!"

I actually had a lot of concealed weapons on my person. Now that they're out in the open, it's not exactly a huge surprise I'd use my formerly-hidden greatsword to cut Eris free.

"You'd save him and not yourself? No matter. I only need one arm to strangle you."
BADAM interrupts. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ONE?"
The Hierarch of Void raises a new arm. And a few more. "Nevermind. This just makes my job easier."
Well, that didn't go as well as I thought it would.
I saved Eris because he's a Descended. I'm just a God, he's a Descended. The only thing I can do better than him is-

Oh.
Oh no.

If I don't have my Void Powers, then I'm not anchoring you to the previous timeline anymore. That would mean-
"YOU'RE VULNERABLE! HA!"

---

Itinerary:
Stop the Hierarch of Void. You're vulnerable as long as he is active.
Defeat BADAM.
Investigate this timeline.
Kill Nikolai for me. Please.

Current Godmodder Hp: N/A

---

Gold Timeline: Xanadu.
WEATHER: ???
FIELD: ???

[BOSS] BUILDER·BADAM. 66/90 Hp. Twilight Providence: 75 SHP! +100% Accuracy/Dodge. Deflects Projectiles.
[PB][ELITE] Engietech Drone. 350,000/350,000 Hp. Attuned Element: BADAM! Bodyguarding BUILDER·BADAM!
[PB][ELITE] Ipos "Adam". 55/90 Hp. +100% Accuracy. +100% Dodge. Paraplegic!
[PB] Past "Adam". 25/25 Hp. +100% Accuracy. +100% Dodge.
[PB][ELITE] Kslerajerk. 20/90 Hp. Deflects Projectiles! Counters! Incorporeal! Being eaten by Kslerajerk!
[PB][ELITE] Nikolai-Labolas. (Nikolai: 50/50 Hp. 105 Armour. Suppressed by Hierarch of Void! Bodyguarding Labolas.) (Labolas: 39/90 Hp. Immune to Magic! Suppressed by Hierarch of Void! Bodyguarding Nikolai! Boosting Nikolai: +39,000 damage per hit! Suppressed by Hierarch of Void!)

[N][ELITE] Hierarch of Void. 40/40 Hp. Positive! Robbed Blind: -Accuracy. Anti-Esoterica Field. Strangling me! Four-Armed.

[Summer] The Arbiter. 70/70 Hp. Void: 0/50. Anteumbra! Strangled: -40 Hp/Round!
[Summer] Bounty Hunter. 10,000/10,000 Hp. Horse: 20,000 Hp. x5.
[Summer] Eris. 21/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Nedben. 4/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Alan. 6/25 Charge. Token! Has a Staff, but it's not a Staff of Symmetry? Just some normal Staff. It's still relevant though.
[Summer] Sylveon. 20/25 Charge. On a Horse? Maybe.
[Summer] June. 25/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Xorm. 1/25 Charge. Token! [A] Devil's Hand. Shells Loaded: 2/2. Maximum Capacity: 2. Total Shells: 6.
[Summer] JOE. 6/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Kslerajerk. 11/25 Charge. Token!
[AG] John. 22/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Smirk. 6/25 Charge. Token!

---

Gold Timeline: JOE's Past.

[???] █████. 200/200 Hp.

[JOE] JOE of the Past. 25/25 Charge.
[JOE] Srovy. 125/125 Hp.
[JOE] JOE's Allies: Insert Allies here. I dunno maybe some Templars I'll figure it out.

[Summer] Copy of JOE from the Present. 6/25 Charge.

 

[Nedben]

THE EXTREMITY THAT OCCURS PRECISELY WHEN THE ACCURSED WORDS ARE SPOKEN, EIGHT BOAT LEAP. If I heard those words again, I would surely declare war. And so it has come to pass, ahahahaha. The incorrectness was never welcome, and let's make that ready. We are here, intervenant, and will not be so lightly denied.

Distance is expanded, and the methods of skipping it faction-selectively suppressed to halt the identified opponent. The specific principle of a certain black consumption is excruciated and removed from the world. Expend everything necessary to obliterate that particular cause, and if needed expend everything we have to hold it off longer. If it takes everything available to even make a dent, we'll just have to amplify the shots taken further. We live again, united. If we must battle ideology and despair as well as corruption, for this I remember Alethea's recipe.

*RKTO destroyer, manifest form of bear. First savaging, destruction of the lacking-of-assets (by genesis of wealth-and-matters). Second savaging, our primal enemy that taints the structure of the world. Third savaging, infectious space devourer blacken. Fourth savaging, relentless the killed.

Let us be specific about what is wrong.
The true form of Nedben's attack is incredibly complicated! It attacks both the despair of the world and connections to networks BUILDER·BADAM is externally exploiting, preferably by becoming a bear and mauling the Hierarch of Void hard enough collateral damage will be unfriendly to the ground and the maintaining of connected arms. If we have enough leftover power, hold off the field effects, weather, and what puppeteers besides our allies remain. The individuals might dodge, but if their infrastructure support networks could we would not be here. And the flaw-consumer is too present and too hungry to hide from our breaking-blows. I have a specific enemy in mind, but its manifestation was by nature never clear and full of cheating. And if we cannot do it all at once, then we will take armament.
-

...I will use what remains of sovereignty over cancelled time. We are golden. The wheels of ages do not churn here. Excruciate, Ame-no-Minakanushi.

There is the loud ursine howl, and there are claws that will break everything to save another dream.

 

[JOEbob]

Present DefJOE (Past) JOE(Past)

• "Incredibly complicated? that seems pretty simple to me! Aren't you just performing an ontological attack on the rules that allow your opponent to exist, act or function?"
  [1x] I look at the ... Arbiter? what's he arbitrating? Anyway! He's being... strangled? What, does this guy need to breathe? Why in the world would you want to need to do that? Anyway, it's an easy fix! The guy doing the strangling is blind because he was robbed blind and that's lowering his accuracy which means it made him literally blind, I don't make the rules- that's what this guy does, probably!- which means he won't be able to see the air which I conjure inside the arbiters lungs.
  Especially since the air is transparent.
  and skin is opaque.
  He's blind, but I'm just saying, it wouldn't really be a problem if he wasn't.
  ...
  oh and I also destroy the preexisting air. wouldn't want this guy popping like a balloon. he probably hasn't even decoupled his mind from his brain! Terrible tactics, really, but so is needing to breathe.
  I'm reasonably sure that 'make air' isn't esoterica. I mean, it's only two words! granted, 'metaconceptual subversion' is also two words, but those are long words. make and air are only 7 letters together! So there!
  [1x] right so that should hopefully handle whatshisface for two rounds before he notices his strangle isn't doing the strangle, which means I have plenty of time to look through all the stuff I sto- er, borrowed from him.
  (I'm not going to give it back. he's an attempted murderer, so I'm totally justified in all this.)
  the description you gave me of his... sighla'decks... was pretty inconsistent- how can 'a lot of treasure' mean 'nothing really of worth'? Even dirt is valuable! you can launch it at people at sizeable fractions of the speed of light! It's a great way of annoying them! bad idea at parties, though, really messes up the room. so I'm going to inspecting this with a careful and precise eye!
  ...
  hm, this is a lot of stuff, actually.
  I hand the sighla'decks to my friend, acarefulandpreciseeye! Yes! that is what I meant! He's this really knowledgeable chap with a really precise eye! I downloaded the entire internet into him! When did I do this? uhhhhh... well he didn't exist until a few seconds ago, But! Time Travel! So it's the internet from before the planet void thingy and also from after! He knows a lot and his single eye is great! I have him go over the entire sighla'decks and describe the benefits of every item in turn, then have the descriptions run through a translator, have another friend (fred) read the translations, and then personally read the list of anything either of them thought was valuable.
  The translation is in case Void Guy is doing a memetic whammy! I'm hoping the layer of separation will weaken it.
  
  [1x] I float through the air much in the way idiots don't until I reach the Engietech drone. Then I kick it in one of the places where the golden energy within is visible! It's a good, strong kick- the drone rattles for a good minute or so afterwards! all that rattling (and possibly a sword, but you didn't hear it from me) creates a gap in the whatever its made of, letting the golden energy leak out! But that's not what the gaps for. No, I proceed to turn into goop!
  ...
  goop means I'm liquid! I mean, what kinda person actually needs a cohesive body? an idiot that's what! I'm just awesome like this. my gooply form, coated in a protective layer of elemental Me, squeezes in through, and plugs, the gap! Now inside the drones internals, where it's full of the 'BADAM Element', I start eating the elemental BADAM inside it. I mean, I'm a slime right now. That's what slimes do: absorb whatever they touch! the layer of elemental Me(BADAM isn't the only person who can make themself into a conceptual pseudoenergetic state and thereby create a worthwhile form of magical power which retains properties in a fractaline manner when divided!) helps with the process, because I'm just better than BADAM, point for point. First of all, he's yellow. Yellows alright, but Cyan is better. Also, he's clearly second fiddle to ADAM, whereas I am absolutely the primary, definitive edition of Me. I'm good, meanwhile his name literally has Bad in it! His allies consist of random abominations, robots, and himself, whereas my allies consist of- well, that would be Telling, wouldn't it. He makes statements which imply someone has been successively killed in a manner roughly three million times more permanent and bad than ordinary death, whereas I would only say that if it was actually true! (Protip, this is impossible because of time travel and the unpredictability theorem, which goes 'you didn't expect me. so there'.) I have lots of other evidence for how much better I am then him on a conceptual level but the point is that I am Absolutely in a position to absorb all the BADAM Element he poured into that drone and then make it into Me Element, which is a much better element.
• Meanwhile, in the past!
  [0x] ...yeah, what is that? I've either forgotten or never knew. I scan it.
  [0x] Let's see, this'd be around the time I was... standing around in confusion! Which was really stupid but in my defence, I was confused. And possibly on drugs, he never really answered my question. Really, I could still be on drugs! Anyway... "Hey past me! I'm you, from the future! it is the time of apocalypse now! Whatever our default plan was, it would've ended with you getting eaten. and Srovy too! You would've respawned, as you can see from, well, me, but... Anyway, do something different this time!"
  That's probably good enough, right? Surely, this dire warning will kick my past arse into gear! yes, there is no way I would ignore the warnings of my future self! Shame my memories aren't updating in real time but the whole point was to use a time travel which doesn't do that.
  [0x] Templars! I know Exactly how to deal with Templars! Okay, so step one is to retroactively infiltrate their entire society and- wait, no, I can't do that, their origins are canon. It's fine, though, I have a backup plan! step one is to- wait, no, that won't work. but I have another backup plan! I call it... Lies and Slander!
  "Hey, Templars! You see that thing over there? It's a fire-breathing lizard!"
  "...what?"
  "Look, see that thing? I say it's a dragon."
  "You... Say it's a dragon?"
  "Well, is there anything un-dragonly about it? name One non-dragonly detail!"
  Surely, the only way they can respond to that is scanning i-"I don't know what's going on here, but it's right suspicious. Do you have any evidence for your claim it's a dragon?"
  "It's mostly red! That's one of the four traditional dragon colors. I've heard the stories! White-Red Cyan-and-Blue!"
  "...You're suspicious... and your argument is terrible... but a possible dragon comes first."
  Negotiation success! I mean they're definitely going to try to kill me when this is over but that's fine, really. I can take'm.
  [1x] I may not know what that is or how it fights or what shape it i-wait, no, I do know how it fights!
  It Eats People!
  That's a short-ranged thing. Also, standard carnivorous combat doctrine implies it probably gains something from eating people. So step one is to make sure it doesn't do that! And the way to make sure it doesn't do that is The Everything Gun! The Everything Gun is a gun which shoots everything, including the kitchen sink! It's not designed for... keeping the output coherent, so it mostly shoots a chaotic stream of matter, energy, magic and everything between. Luckily, I have an all-purpose control dial! I tape it to the everything gun and scribble an 'Everything Sentry Gun' option onto it. pulling the trigger causes dozens of Everything Sentry Guns to spill out of the Everything Gun, and then immediately start firing at the FIVE RECTANGLES. The Everything Sentry-Guns came out with just the settings I needed, so the energy, matter, magic, etc they fire is carefully aimed and calibrated so that it won't stay in one place long enough to be eaten! Hopefully, the matter will be enough to hold back the FIVE RECTANGLES by the principal that being hit in the face with an endless barrage of matter usually pushes people back. If not, hopefully the (Kinetic) energy will be enough to hold it back by the principal that having momentum in a direction moves you in a direction. If not, hopefully the (light) energy and all the everything will be enough to blind it and keep it from seeing things by the principal that if there is too much stuff it is harder to see specific things. If not, hopefully the space(space totally counts as something between matter energy and magic) will be enough to hold it back by the principal that it takes time to move. If not, hopefully the psychic energy will be enough to stun it. If not, hopefully the magic will be enough to hold it back on the principal that a wizard did it.
  
  [1x] ...This is all a distraction, of course. Whatever I'm fighting is strong enough to eat me and prooobably Srovy? Which makes it excessively likely that it can tank everything the Everything Sentry Guns just through at it. Hopefully it's not expecting them and so will still get stalled, but I'm not going to bet on it. It could totally be inviolate. Hence the distraction.
  When faced with an opponent of great defensive/counteraction potency, as this opponent will likely be if the above was unsuccessful(and if the above worked, I can spare an action on this), killing them is of course difficult, but that's not what I'm trying to do anyway, yet. I don't know enough about whatever the fliggle this is, goal number uno is to stall. So, to avoid the hypothesised counteraction/defensive potency, my actual stalling method is indirect. Indeed, I will not, technically speaking, do anything to the opponent. Rather, I set up a spell to, and also personally make sure to, keep a close eye on its position, my allies, and the areas around them, and if at any point the oppositional being/force approaches me or an ally of mine or seems to be targeting them, I/my spell teleport(s) said target away! The destination location will be random, on the battlefield, and not particularly proximate to the foe. If teleportation doesn't work (I have a few ideas of ways, if not whys, it wouldn't but best not to give reality ideas), Telekinesis will throw the targets out of the way! If that doesn't work, then the target explodes! It's a specialised type of explosion which doesn't hurt people, really more like being transmuted into sapient smoke, it's not really important how it works but it spreads out the person so if you tried to eat them you'd get the equivalent of a fingernail clipping per chomp instead of an entire body. and for most of the teleportation-and-telekinesis counters I can think of it also throws the opponent into a wall, but that's secondary. The point is that Whatever this thing is, it's not getting to anyone!
  
  [1x] now that-blargleblargblg-lr-blg-wff iff muo paff swuff kwming douguus innoo mie moufh-cough, hak.
  Ahem.
  "Why did my past self just cram drugs into my mouth."
  "Fair question, ah, I heard you needed help or drugs."
  "So you decided to give me both, right?"
  "Well..."
  "So you decided to give me boat, right?"
  "What?"
  "The drugs are kicking me there are boats everywhere are any of these nedbens?"
  "Great job sounding drugged there. really, fantastic."
  "Thankks i tery . wow, theras a lot ff tyelow there, ibets theres soom orz to..."
  "..."
  "tough crowd, wehsould havem fight for us!"
  By this point, my perception of reality has either degraded far enough that I won't be saying anything coherent/real, or FIVE RECTANGLES has turned into a small duck and started bleeding Nedbens and confetti, the ground has turned into a giant Colosseum boat, surrounded by boats with a battle-ready audience on them, and half the boats are have banners saying things like "THE CASUS BELI IS BEARS", "some of our plans include resolving the limitations of REALITY. and some of them are about MEMES", and "Don't Do Drugs, Be Drugs". That last one's good advice! Unfortunately, what are drugs? what are drugs, drugs? drugs are drugs? no? rugs? yugs? where did all these rugs come from, and why are they on fire? kaleidoscopic fire, specifically? the audience seems immune to rugs, though. The audience. the audience. the audience. Am I part of the audience? I haven't died from a rug yet, so I must be. The audience. the audience. there is no audience. But I am the audience. there is an audience. what is the audience? the audience is the audience. The audience prays the pain is love itself, the main ecological problem. for the various problems, no one, nor the kids, nor the course of all. It is important to focus on what is happening, it is important to invest now, and the bed is not long, but the consequences We live with improve the convenience lion of the lake against fear. The life is pure time and the lion is the pain. That's a lot of money a lot of of lot lot money of money golden shining golden yellow colors fingers colors-
  BLEEEURG
  Alright now that... most... of those drugs are out of my system let's see what actually... happened. Uh...
  
  {{{The intention of this action is to summon a Nedben by the power of drugs. This is the 'intention' in the sense that it is... a result I half expect? However, the action is drugs. It became drugs for reasons unrelated to nedben- the pseudo-faux-conversation in the JOE(Past) tab naturally developed up to 'Just for that (drugs is) what I'm giving him' without consideration of nedben and thereby required at least one action be drugs. Being drugs, the action is of course unpredictable and it's not clear what, if anything, happened. Viable options besides summoning nedben include: turning the five-rectangles into a small duck, summoning a tough crowd to fight for me, a rain of metaphysically potent flaming rugs, or a lion of a lake which opposes fear.
  This action has more than one action of power behind it, because it is sort-of a team action between JOE(Past) and DefJOE(Past). In the sense that JOE shoved drugs into DefJOEs mouth and DefJOE then was on drugs. Srovy may or may not have also contributed. If the action is stronger than the effect, probably just trigger multiple of the effects.}}}
• Past-JOE uses brown text to be distinct from DefJOE in dialogue. This has no new implications about his character; if it wouldn't be confusing he would've been cyan
  Srovy dialogue, Red, reflects my attempts to analogise this situation to another situation and then predict what might be said in that situation and then translate it back. It is still written by me, and the whole thing is perhaps best thought of as a metaphor, something something umineko something something.
  "-nd that something is?"
  "Something. You're not sure what it is."
  "Well, what does i-something look like?"
  "you're not sure."
  "I'm-What, am I on All the drugs? how am I not sure wha-"
  "Hey past me! I'm you, from the future! it is the time of apocalypse now! Whatever our default plan was, it would've ended with you getting eaten. and Srovy too! You would've respawned, as you can see from, well, me, but... Anyway, do something different this time! -And then he runs over to the templars and starts yelling some nonsense about lizards."
  "Time travel? That just makes it more obvious I'm on drugs."
  "would I do that to you?"
  "Yes."
  "But I was napping last time."
  "Yeah, so?"
  "Well, if you're on drugs, then that means it's time for everyones favourite game-"
  "fine, fine, so I'm not on the drugs. I'll take this seriously or something."
  "alright, the thing seems-"
  "though for the record if I'm on the drugs I totally called it"
  "You're not on the drugs-"
  "I'm just saying if I a-"
  "-yet."
  "-m-wait what do you mean 'yet'."
  "Yet. Anyway, future you is holding off the thing and he looks like he needs help..."
  "Alright."
  "Or drugs."
  "Just for that that's what I'm giving him."
  "See, I totally knew you were gonna be on drugs eventually."
  "it's a future me, doesn't count. Anyway..."
  [First Action+possible Srovy support.] Alright, I portal over to future me and sneak attack him with a lump of drugs you left in Snake Pants Guys mountain, jamming them right into his mouth. he coughs and sputters a bit, then deadpans "Why did my past self just cram drugs into my mouth."
  "Fair question, ah, I heard you needed help or drugs."
  "So you decided to give me both, right?"
  "Well..."
  "So you decided to give mboat, right?" he repeats.
  "What?"
  "The drugs are kicking me there are boats everywhere are any of these nedbens?"
  "Great job sounding drugged there. really, fantastic."
  "Thankks i tery . wow, theras a lot ff tyelow there, ibets theres soom orz to..."
  "..."
  "tough crowd, wehsould havem fight for us!"
  Wait, since when do you know what an orz is? What a whats a what? You said an orz, that's a thing I didn't know you knew about. Hey, I didn't say it. your future self did. ...the orz is a higher-dimensional entity which acts like- nevermind. my question stands. Why would you think I knew what that is? Because you just said it? No I didn't?
  ...
  Oh.
  I was wondering why you were trying to provide dialogue for a version of me.
  So like, this is actually a thing, and I'm not-canonically- on drugs?
  More then just that. employ your imagination.
  [Null Action] So if I'm not on drugs, what in the world Is that thing? {{{Scan}}}
  [Second Action] And if this is actually a thing putting him on drugs was probably a mistake, but it's a bit late to do something about that. What'd he do while we were talking, again... looks like he put down a bunch of sentry guns aimed at the... whatever it is, and did a something magical? Very defensive. He did say it ate me. Fair. I'm not sure I can really help with that, I don't even have astral right now, but I can attack the thing. I grow some bone swords out of my hands and a coil of flesh thread. Flesh thread? I'm not a biologist there's probably a body part that can be a rope. Intestines, let's go with intestines. Then I throw the bone swords at the whatsit. Since they're still attached to the intestines, I can still control them, and I have them start leaking various harmful biological materials and growing spikes into the thingy... Man, blood elementalism sucks at ranged combat. Because that's not the thing it is the do? I guess...{{{intended to inflict negative regen on the entity, preferably permanent.}}}
  [Third Action] I then summon my release blade aThis is the templar sidequest, we don't have any of that stuff. Don't we? the blades are soulbound, or something. Do we remember they exist? Wait, didn't we use them at some point? I distinctly recall you hid a weapon inside a chainsaw... no, but we can summon these so we wouldn't need to hide them. What did you hide inside a chainsaw? That was so long ago, man. I don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure we were hiding our identities from the templars until just now so obviously we wouldn't use our distinctive soulbound katanae. Yes. this definitely isn't a retcon of any kind. I summon my release blade and start charging it with Time elemental energy, which I am Mostly sure was my second element on this sidequest. I'd charge it with blood too, but I'm using that on charging up the bone swords.
  {{{This action is preparatory. Note to self, Glyph Chestplate's astral and blood is blood.}}}

 

[Sylveone46]

"So, you want Nikolai dead? That can be arranged."

ACTION 1/2+10 Charge: Run over Labolas with a Train

The Sylveon Cowboy Whistles, a portal tears open and a train speeds out of it, in an attempt to tangle and crush labolas within it's wheels.

Of course, while it is targeting labolas, that isn't actually what it's intending to hit.

Since Nikolai is bodyguarding Labolas, Nikolai will defend Labolas, taking the blow in their place.

A simple game of the system, an attempt, at least.

"You know what this place needs? Sand."

ACTION 3+10 Charge: Change The Weather to a Sandstorm

From seemingly nowhere, a harsh wind kicks up, carrying sand from nowhere as well.

"ALRIGHT HUNTERS! Another salvo on Labolas!"

ENTITY ORDER: Attack Labolas

More used to the sudden change of weather, the Bounty Hunters and their horses are unbothered, as they fire off another round of rifle fire into BADAM's demon lackey...

of course, just like the train, the true target of this attack is Nikolai, attempting to once again use the fact that Nikolai is guarding Labolas to hit him instead.

"... You know, it occurs to me, why are we on team Summer? I guess they're the closest thing to an ANTI-BADAM faction."

Charge: 0/25

 

[O.R.I.G.I.N.]

Action 1 (Got a TL;DR at the end of the action): As Badam tells John to chill, John simply shakes his head. "I know man. I don't blame you. This just feels awkward, buddy. Especially since everybody else apparently hopped onto team Summer instead of AG... Meh. If I really wanted to fit in here, I'd be a wizard or something stupid like that, anyways. Relevancy has never been my main prowess... Anyways, Badam, even though I'm about to totally SHRED you, I want you to know I do it with all the gentlemanly respect I absolutely lack." John offers Badam his hand to shake, but accidentally slams his fingers into the Engitech Drone that's bodyguarding Badam. "I see," John mumbles, shaking his hand out, trying not to wince too hard with his slightly hurt voice. "I can already feel this rift between us, buddy. It's sad to see." John sucks on his fingers a bit. That Drone... John has no clue who Engie is, but that dude knows his Metal. "I guess I'll just have to go all Rage Against the Machine on this thing. Or did I already use Bulls on Parade...? Probably..."

John's head then proceeds to fall off. Totally unrelated to his hand injury, mind you. Thinking: his bane. His head decides to just get up and walk away -er, roll away would be more accurate, probably. Rolls. Like a stone. It waits for him there. Alone.

Meanwhile, as the narration makes references, a NEW HEAD grows on John's shoulders! Amazing! Just "pop!" and it's there. An incredible feet of athleticism only matched by his other head's lack thereof. But there's something different about his new head: it lacks the mohawk. His entire personality! Ruined! What a shame. Instead, he has long, brown locks of hair that hang down from the top of his head and bundle over his eyes, masking his face in a twister of curls. And, like a Potato Head, it also comes with new ACCESSORIES! Replacing the overbearing piercings all over his face is a massive set of headphones that are physically nailed into his head, totally encompassing his ears in their cushy black padding. Strangely enough, John's various spike bands are also replaced with long shackles, whose chains seem to stretch back behind him into the ethereal void beyond. Under the weight of those heavy bands, he seems to hunch over, taking long, methodical steps as he backs away from the Engietech Drone.

In an unearthly deep voice, John's new mouth begins to murmur two lines of song, repeating them like an incantation, metal song notes falling from his lips as he grumbles, "Nail in my head, from my creator. You gave me life now show me how to live."

As he sings, John's massive headphones begin to ring, an annoying bell tone, loud enough to be heard from beneath the heavy cuffs that cover his ears. It wavers with a twittering insanity, gaining volume as it continues to scream. Beneath its tone, John continues to mumble the lines, and the metal notes stir beneath him. Shaking at his feet, the notes morph, changing into the shapes of twisted nails, rotted at the tip, but piercingly sharp. The warped metal floats into the air, humming with the exact same sound as the ringing in John's head.

The chorus continues, splintering toward the Engietech Drone in an ever-rising wave. Beneath its force, the Drone begins to feel heavy. It falls to its knees, crumpling down as its golden parts seem to grow denser around it. John's head barely gives notice. Yet, as the Drone gives a loud clatter, falling deeper into the floor of the Last Ark, John ends his lines. Immediately, his voice rolls into a different verse.

"Built with stolen parts," he murmurs, the nails shooting forward, aiming for the Engietech Drone. "Telephone in my heart." The nails attack the Drone like a swarm of suicidal bees, piercing its shell as they continue to vibrate with song. "Someone get me a priest." As they make contact, the song grows louder within the Drone's grinding gears, shaking the machine's golden core a violent, quaking force. Taking a breath, John continues, "To put my mind to bed-" The Drone is pushed further into the ground, its armor bending under the force that encompasses its body. "This ringing in my head." The Drone's power source begins to scream in agony. "Is this a cure?" Rust covers the Drone at every impact point, corroding it both outside and within, tearing its joints apart into a fine dust. "Or is this a disease?"

John stops singing. No one can hear. The sound of the bell still clatters forcefully around them, pouring from John's numb head as the Engitech Drone breaks under the pressure. John approaches the Engitech Drone, lumbering forward as he holds out his hand, a massive metal spike appearing in it as his fingers close around it. Swinging the spike's flat head, he changes his grip, holding it in both hands of his hunched shoulders. Stopping before the Engietech Drone, John towers above it, looking down with disdain under his hair-masked face. He raises both his arms, holding the spike menacingly over the fallen drone. Then, with a single move, he stabs it downward, thrusting it through the drone's head with a sickening crunch as the bells finally silence.

John stands over the ruin for a moment, taking in his work. Then, his long curls turn to Badam, and he murmurs, "And in the afterbirth on the quiet earth, let the stains remind you of. You thought you made a man. You better think again, before my role defines you." John then turns away, stalking off as his chains clatter behind him.

TL;DR: Menace the Engietech Drone with rusty nails. As many as I can throw at it.

Actions 2 & 3 (Just skip the lullaby. The action is at the end.): Stepping away, John shakes out his head. His hair is whirlwind around his head, blurring his face as his new head fades. Like a wet dog, the edgy head disappears, and the old, loveable mohawk returns. His mouth curls open, almost disgusted as his tongue lips his receding upper lip. "I need to get some less edgy actions," he spits, still walking as his spike bands reappear. Without a thought, John steps up onto his floating platform, where his guitar case waits, lonely. "Whatever happened to my silly instrument attacks? Gosh. There's gotta be something easy to whack with-"

John then notices what he did to Ipos. He breaks down laughing. "Oh, that's great!" he says, wiping a tear from his eye. "Now I can rob another Adam of his sword!"

The speaker platform floats down, stopping just in front of the two Adams. Still chuckling, John greets them, "HEY buddies! I'm on your side! AG, right? You are Adams, yes? Kings of Earth? Why do you need to serve some idiot yellow dude? You are your own men- man- time travelers- whatever! I don't know! THIS IS WHY LOGAN WON'T LET ME KEEP MY TIME VAN!!!" John stops himself for a moment, regaining his chill. "Okay," he continues. "let's try this again. What are you doing serving goldy pants over there? Shouldn't you be hunting down the Ace of Clubs- I mean Spades. Sorry. Not a big poker player either. Could never quite get the fireplace working properly." John stops again, lost in some irrelevant tangent. After a few moments, he shakes his head out again. "Sorry fellas. Just reattached this thing. It's all wonky. How about this? I'm gonna remind you both of who you are, got it? I have the perfect song."

John sings them a lullaby.

"Hush little Adams don't say a word.
"John is gonna kill you a Hark-en-er.
"And if that Ace of Spades won't die,
"HM-AS Free-dom is gonna fly.
"And if that shuttle falls from space,
"Adam'll lead the hu-man race.
"And with his saber at the helm,
"Adam's gonna rule the entire realm.
"With the 'mod-der fallen dead,
"Adam will be God in her stead.
"Finally with his men amassed,
"Adam will rule all time at last.
"So hush little Adams, don't you cry.
"The Ace of Spades will surely die."

As John sings, the Adams both begin to feel weary. The weight of changing time closes their eyes, and they both fall into a deep sleep.

And while they do that, John sneaks over, steals Ipos Adam's "TIME SWORD" and runs off, covering his mouth to keep himself from laughing.

 

[Ender_Smirk]

"Why are you fighting? Do you even understand what this timeline is? This is a world of illumination. Of certainty. This is what I've always wanted, what the other Void Gods never had. And now it's just us. The last three Void Gods, all in one place. I kill you two, and all will be clear."

Click to shrink...

"Oh, well that's just great. We get transported to the dystopian alternate timeline by Psychopath the Bad at his Job" Smirk points at BADAM "being possessed by what I assume is a demon of some variety (Adam, assuming we get out of this and I don't make a point to kill you in the process, we will have a significant quantity of words on your lack of anti Balefire measures), and we also get to deal with an idiot who is convinced this is all somehow a good thing. Fan fricking tastic... Although, now that I THINK ABOUT IT-"

Smirk suddenly warps behind Mister Voiddork the Edgy (Void Hierarch)

"I THINK I'VE GOT A GREAT USE FOR YOU!"
The look on Smirk's face makes it very obvious the Void Hierarch will not agree on his definition of 'great'.

Actions:

Smirk's descendancy halo begins to flare up around him, images, logos and icons swirling around him, but something feels off. For one thing, the logos are now crimson instead of green, and for another, which logos they are has changed. No more are they symbols of peace, or heroism. Now they are the antihero, and the utilitarian. He touches his hand to the ground, and suddenly, pinpricks of crimson light spread all along the ground throughout the area, and then start to rise from it, somehow making a wireframe as they do.

Before the Hierarch can truly understand what this means, one of the pinpricks leaps from the ground between his legs, kicking him skywards. "You know, if this is a world of illumination, when there is quiet throughout, and all the stars are snuffed out, then it's only fitting you go as well. You are already too loud, and any good god should be a beacon greater than a star!"
Smirk appears before the Hierarch in a mesh of the pinpricks seemingly in the form of armor, and uses both fists to SLAM the Hierarch away from the Arbiter, the pinpricks driving deep into his stomach. "Then again, maybe not. Who knows, you might make a fun beach ball." Smirk grins eerily at this, before watching a pinprick shoot straight from off to his side, as if from a sniper round, and into the Hierarch's head. And then another one. And then another one. And then another one. And then, well this is getting repetitive.

Smirk then makes a motion with his left hand, and a massive chain mace made of these pinpricks seems to form over his head, before swinging itself, and slamming into the Hierarch, accelerating him around in a wide circle, before launching him further away.

Smirk looks at a watch which randomly appeared on his wrist. "My my, look at the time. Three seconds until lunch time." When he looks up, he's right in front of the Hierarch's present trajectory, and a larger pinprick mesh, this time forming a dragon of the crimson light, forms around him, and breathes out a spray of the lights at the incoming Hierarch. "Huh, still hasn't thawed out. Oh well. Guess there's nothing for it."

As the Hierarch might think he's finally flying away from the onslaught, and maybe to safety, the dragon morphs into a gigantic, oversized dragon turtle, which proceeds to rear one of it's legs, before Smirk says "I wish I was about to kick you out into the jaws of that thing which destroyed everything else in the Void." The Giant Light Bowser then swings it's leg forwards, "Free Will Chump!" connecting with the Hierarch, and launching him skywards, through a portal deep in the middle of the nothingness, and into a cloud of Smirk patent pending time dilation, this time making him incredibly slow relative to the world around him. Smirk then gets out a law chair, some popcorn, and watches to see whatever the thing which swept away the dirt would do to a Void God. His smile has not stopped being eerie.

(Long story short, Smirk goes ballistic on the Void Hierarch, and then lets whatever it is that destroyed the Void eat the leftovers, hoping to see more details of what it is as a result, so I guess scan from there.)

 

[The Ego]

With its tendrils- razor-sharp, remember- Kslerajerk performs Elven-linguistic surgery on itselves, with a swift punctual [cut] separating Kslerà from Jerk.
Jerk (formerly Leraje) maintains their [being eaten by Jerk] status. [Why]? Primarily because Jerks tend to devolve into social autocannibalism by virtue of their jerkdom, and our whole schtick here is blurring the lines between the figurative and the real by way of one eldritch, hungry squidy boy.
But also because a Jerk plus why makes for a tasty snack.

 

[KitRougard]

Something something "taunt guy who's immune to projectiles, Extra Finger, Charge 2" something something

 

[FlamingFlapjacks]

The m- Eris, remains unperturbed as their invisibility is ripped away. Their expression continues to remain blank as they hover there- and are cut free by the Arbiter, giving them a short nod.

"My reasons are my own. I would prefer not to allow a mess such as this continue- Oh, strangulation." They comment, tilting their head. Sighing, they clench their fist- the air responding as a rippling absence in the shape of a massive hand forms above them. Floating, the absence rapidly exists through the air until it's positioned above the Heirarch of Void- and with a swipe, unleashes a one fingered assault upon them, breaking their grip on the Arbiter with a rapid barrage of hand swipes. Eris nods appreciatively, before turning to admire the consequences of their actions last round-

"...What is that drone."

The null hand dissipates back into air, and they flash over to the Engietech Drone- placing a hand on wherever it's storing it's energy. Summoning another wave of void, they attempt to erase the energy BADAM has filled it with. These really should only be refilled with Oblivion energy. It's quite risky to play with.

 

[Splashcat]

Nothing makes sense.

This is an objectively false statement, because the universe fundamentally does make sense when you get down to it, and Alan of all people should really know that, but he's finding it hard to believe right now. What's Nikolai's deal? How is he here? What about the Hierarch of Void, what about Void makes him the only one that made it through? What's even going on with "Adam", is Badam Adam or not? How did the universe end? Why does the pain keep coming?

He pushes himself to his feet, one limb at a time, struggling to stay afoot even with the aid of his staff. His pupils have ragged Mandelbrot edges, his irises a barely perceptible fringe. He feels vulnerable. He is vulnerable. And he's not going to sit there and do nothing about it.

-----

First, the Hierarch. Who's strangling the Arbiter. He has four arms and two legs, very top-heavy. And worse yet, three of those arms are on one side. Alan redistributes his limbs to make them more symmetrical, moving one summoned arm down and turning it into a center leg and another summoned arm to the middle of his chest to be a center arm. This spreading-out of arms also hopefully gives the Arbiter a chance to break the chokehold.

Then Alan sees Smirk coming in with a much larger attack, and decides the rest of his turn is likely better spent elsewhere. (It would feel kind of cheat-y to say I commit no action power to this because I already saw in the partial next dop that Smirk is dead, but division of action power seems kind of flexible here anyways, so, idk.)

-----

First, he talks more to Adam.

ALAN: This is not the original timeline's Nikolai.
ALAN: The original Nikolai is dead.
ALAN: ...
ALAN: When Badam split apart from you, right before that happened, you said "Never again."
ALAN: Badam is someone you have encountered before.
ALAN: Badam was already inside you and was simply awakened, empowered, set free, or similar.
ALAN: Conversely, I am on the wrong track: Badam is a new entity created by Nedben's actions.
ALAN: Badam cannot be considered to either have been already present or a new entity, he is a fork of you.
ALAN: You don't know which of the above three statements is the case.
ALAN: You consider yourself to have a good understanding of Badam's nature.
ALAN: Nedben tried to "sever a 90HP [AG] body from a 90Charge [MSN] Descendant." You are the [AG] body, Badam is the [MSN] Descendant.
ALAN: The opposite is true, you are the [MSN] Descendant, Badam is the [AG] Body.
ALAN: Alternatively, this distinction is meaningless, Nedben did not in fact "sever a 90HP [AG] body from a 90Charge [MSN] Descendant" and the split between you and Badam is along entirely different lines.
ALAN: Badam is an embodiment of the Tetris of the Arbiter.
ALAN: Circling back, Past "Adam" is what is left when Badam was separated from Ipos.
ALAN: You knew this would be the case.
ALAN: You know what would be left behind if Leraje and Labolas were sundered in the same way.
ALAN: Badam is himself a composite of Part of You and some other entity.
ALAN: Badam is Baldr.
ALAN: Badam is associated with Baldr.
ALAN: You don't know who Baldr is.
ALAN: You know why Badam performed the mockery of offering salvation that he did during this timeline's apocalypse.
ALAN: Badam did it just for kicks.
ALAN: You consider yourself to understand Badam's motivations well.
ALAN: And while I'm at it... Four-letter names that go A consonant A consonant are awesome. Heh.

-----

Alan still isn't sure how to go after Badam directly, especially not without Adam's highlights. There's too many unknowns. Some of the demons, though... he knows what he could do about one of them.

Most of my action power:

Alan advances towards Nikolai-Labolas, feet falling heavily on the ground. He draws a nimbus of Order energy around himself, but it is ragged and torn. Thin black lines snake out from his footsteps, tracing cracks in the floor, turning randomly at right angles until they self-collide and annihilate. Everything is terribly wrong, but impossible though Alan finds it to look upon it directly, there is something to be learned from the way the world breaks. He snatches a crack off the ground a moment before it snuffs out, then folds it into a triangle, three edges and nothing else. He throws it at Nikolai-Labolas like a shuriken, and the air cracks with the sound of its passage.

Just before it strikes Nikolai-Labolas, the crack is intercepted by Nikolai-Labolas. However, in the process, it drops one layer of abstraction deeper. Now there are more cracks inside the crack, a second upside-down triangle subdividing the first. The moment before the new inner attack hits home, it is blocked by Nikolai-Labolas. Two layers in, the pattern is even more complex. Each of the three outer triangles formed by the removal of the inner triangle now itself contains a triangle, aiming to sever Nikolai-Labolas in three places at once. Before that can happen, Nikolai-Labloas intercedes and takes the attack. Another layer of triangles springs forth, only to be redirected to hitting Nikolai-Labolas... The fractal has no bottom. Each layer only brings more cracks, an infinite number of infinitesimal triangles at the bottom of an infinite bodyguard chain inflicting an infinite number of wounds.

 

[redoubtableEagle]

ploco ponst

 

[DCCCV]

THE EXTREMITY THAT OCCURS PRECISELY WHEN THE ACCURSED WORDS ARE SPOKEN, EIGHT BOAT LEAP. If I heard those words again, I would surely declare war. And so it has come to pass, ahahahaha. The incorrectness was never welcome, and let's make that ready. We are here, intervenant, and will not be so lightly denied.

Distance is expanded, and the methods of skipping it faction-selectively suppressed to halt the identified opponent. The specific principle of a certain black consumption is excruciated and removed from the world. Expend everything necessary to obliterate that particular cause, and if needed expend everything we have to hold it off longer. If it takes everything available to even make a dent, we'll just have to amplify the shots taken further. We live again, united. If we must battle ideology and despair as well as corruption, for this I remember Alethea's recipe.

*RKTO destroyer, manifest form of bear. First savaging, destruction of the lacking-of-assets (by genesis of wealth-and-matters). Second savaging, our primal enemy that taints the structure of the world. Third savaging, infectious space devourer blacken. Fourth savaging, relentless the killed.

Let us be specific about what is wrong.
The true form of Nedben's attack is incredibly complicated! It attacks both the despair of the world and connections to networks BUILDER·BADAM is externally exploiting, preferably by becoming a bear and mauling the Hierarch of Void hard enough collateral damage will be unfriendly to the ground and the maintaining of connected arms. If we have enough leftover power, hold off the field effects, weather, and what puppeteers besides our allies remain. The individuals might dodge, but if their infrastructure support networks could we would not be here. And the flaw-consumer is too present and too hungry to hide from our breaking-blows. I have a specific enemy in mind, but its manifestation was by nature never clear and full of cheating. And if we cannot do it all at once, then we will take armament.
-

...I will use what remains of sovereignty over cancelled time. We are golden. The wheels of ages do not churn here. Excruciate, Ame-no-Minakanushi.

There is the loud ursine howl, and there are claws that will break everything to save another dream.

Click to shrink...

With Astrec gone, the Antibear field is similarly not in effect. You summon forth a phantom being that mauls the Hierarch of Void into the ground, devastating everything in it's path. Soil is displaced as the Brown One tears into him, digging deeper and deeper until it's claws hit not stone, but shining. Acting as a non-newtonian fluid, it becomes even harder in response to the force of the Destroyer's blows. 25 Damage to the Heirarch of Void.

As they let go of me, I fall into the metal, which deforms and cushions my impact almost like a mattress.
Hold on. This is...
Nanotech.

Present DefJOE (Past) JOE(Past)

• "Incredibly complicated? that seems pretty simple to me! Aren't you just performing an ontological attack on the rules that allow your opponent to exist, act or function?"
  [1x] I look at the ... Arbiter? what's he arbitrating? Anyway! He's being... strangled? What, does this guy need to breathe? Why in the world would you want to need to do that? Anyway, it's an easy fix! The guy doing the strangling is blind because he was robbed blind and that's lowering his accuracy which means it made him literally blind, I don't make the rules- that's what this guy does, probably!- which means he won't be able to see the air which I conjure inside the arbiters lungs.
  Especially since the air is transparent.
  and skin is opaque.
  He's blind, but I'm just saying, it wouldn't really be a problem if he wasn't.
  ...
  oh and I also destroy the preexisting air. wouldn't want this guy popping like a balloon. he probably hasn't even decoupled his mind from his brain! Terrible tactics, really, but so is needing to breathe.
  I'm reasonably sure that 'make air' isn't esoterica. I mean, it's only two words! granted, 'metaconceptual subversion' is also two words, but those are long words. make and air are only 7 letters together! So there!
  [1x] right so that should hopefully handle whatshisface for two rounds before he notices his strangle isn't doing the strangle, which means I have plenty of time to look through all the stuff I sto- er, borrowed from him.
  (I'm not going to give it back. he's an attempted murderer, so I'm totally justified in all this.)
  the description you gave me of his... sighla'decks... was pretty inconsistent- how can 'a lot of treasure' mean 'nothing really of worth'? Even dirt is valuable! you can launch it at people at sizeable fractions of the speed of light! It's a great way of annoying them! bad idea at parties, though, really messes up the room. so I'm going to inspecting this with a careful and precise eye!
  ...
  hm, this is a lot of stuff, actually.
  I hand the sighla'decks to my friend, acarefulandpreciseeye! Yes! that is what I meant! He's this really knowledgeable chap with a really precise eye! I downloaded the entire internet into him! When did I do this? uhhhhh... well he didn't exist until a few seconds ago, But! Time Travel! So it's the internet from before the planet void thingy and also from after! He knows a lot and his single eye is great! I have him go over the entire sighla'decks and describe the benefits of every item in turn, then have the descriptions run through a translator, have another friend (fred) read the translations, and then personally read the list of anything either of them thought was valuable.
  The translation is in case Void Guy is doing a memetic whammy! I'm hoping the layer of separation will weaken it.
  
  [1x] I float through the air much in the way idiots don't until I reach the Engietech drone. Then I kick it in one of the places where the golden energy within is visible! It's a good, strong kick- the drone rattles for a good minute or so afterwards! all that rattling (and possibly a sword, but you didn't hear it from me) creates a gap in the whatever its made of, letting the golden energy leak out! But that's not what the gaps for. No, I proceed to turn into goop!
  ...
  goop means I'm liquid! I mean, what kinda person actually needs a cohesive body? an idiot that's what! I'm just awesome like this. my gooply form, coated in a protective layer of elemental Me, squeezes in through, and plugs, the gap! Now inside the drones internals, where it's full of the 'BADAM Element', I start eating the elemental BADAM inside it. I mean, I'm a slime right now. That's what slimes do: absorb whatever they touch! the layer of elemental Me(BADAM isn't the only person who can make themself into a conceptual pseudoenergetic state and thereby create a worthwhile form of magical power which retains properties in a fractaline manner when divided!) helps with the process, because I'm just better than BADAM, point for point. First of all, he's yellow. Yellows alright, but Cyan is better. Also, he's clearly second fiddle to ADAM, whereas I am absolutely the primary, definitive edition of Me. I'm good, meanwhile his name literally has Bad in it! His allies consist of random abominations, robots, and himself, whereas my allies consist of- well, that would be Telling, wouldn't it. He makes statements which imply someone has been successively killed in a manner roughly three million times more permanent and bad than ordinary death, whereas I would only say that if it was actually true! (Protip, this is impossible because of time travel and the unpredictability theorem, which goes 'you didn't expect me. so there'.) I have lots of other evidence for how much better I am then him on a conceptual level but the point is that I am Absolutely in a position to absorb all the BADAM Element he poured into that drone and then make it into Me Element, which is a much better element.
• Meanwhile, in the past!
  [0x] ...yeah, what is that? I've either forgotten or never knew. I scan it.
  [0x] Let's see, this'd be around the time I was... standing around in confusion! Which was really stupid but in my defence, I was confused. And possibly on drugs, he never really answered my question. Really, I could still be on drugs! Anyway... "Hey past me! I'm you, from the future! it is the time of apocalypse now! Whatever our default plan was, it would've ended with you getting eaten. and Srovy too! You would've respawned, as you can see from, well, me, but... Anyway, do something different this time!"
  That's probably good enough, right? Surely, this dire warning will kick my past arse into gear! yes, there is no way I would ignore the warnings of my future self! Shame my memories aren't updating in real time but the whole point was to use a time travel which doesn't do that.
  [0x] Templars! I know Exactly how to deal with Templars! Okay, so step one is to retroactively infiltrate their entire society and- wait, no, I can't do that, their origins are canon. It's fine, though, I have a backup plan! step one is to- wait, no, that won't work. but I have another backup plan! I call it... Lies and Slander!
  "Hey, Templars! You see that thing over there? It's a fire-breathing lizard!"
  "...what?"
  "Look, see that thing? I say it's a dragon."
  "You... Say it's a dragon?"
  "Well, is there anything un-dragonly about it? name One non-dragonly detail!"
  Surely, the only way they can respond to that is scanning i-"I don't know what's going on here, but it's right suspicious. Do you have any evidence for your claim it's a dragon?"
  "It's mostly red! That's one of the four traditional dragon colors. I've heard the stories! White-Red Cyan-and-Blue!"
  "...You're suspicious... and your argument is terrible... but a possible dragon comes first."
  Negotiation success! I mean they're definitely going to try to kill me when this is over but that's fine, really. I can take'm.
  [1x] I may not know what that is or how it fights or what shape it i-wait, no, I do know how it fights!
  It Eats People!
  That's a short-ranged thing. Also, standard carnivorous combat doctrine implies it probably gains something from eating people. So step one is to make sure it doesn't do that! And the way to make sure it doesn't do that is The Everything Gun! The Everything Gun is a gun which shoots everything, including the kitchen sink! It's not designed for... keeping the output coherent, so it mostly shoots a chaotic stream of matter, energy, magic and everything between. Luckily, I have an all-purpose control dial! I tape it to the everything gun and scribble an 'Everything Sentry Gun' option onto it. pulling the trigger causes dozens of Everything Sentry Guns to spill out of the Everything Gun, and then immediately start firing at the FIVE RECTANGLES. The Everything Sentry-Guns came out with just the settings I needed, so the energy, matter, magic, etc they fire is carefully aimed and calibrated so that it won't stay in one place long enough to be eaten! Hopefully, the matter will be enough to hold back the FIVE RECTANGLES by the principal that being hit in the face with an endless barrage of matter usually pushes people back. If not, hopefully the (Kinetic) energy will be enough to hold it back by the principal that having momentum in a direction moves you in a direction. If not, hopefully the (light) energy and all the everything will be enough to blind it and keep it from seeing things by the principal that if there is too much stuff it is harder to see specific things. If not, hopefully the space(space totally counts as something between matter energy and magic) will be enough to hold it back by the principal that it takes time to move. If not, hopefully the psychic energy will be enough to stun it. If not, hopefully the magic will be enough to hold it back on the principal that a wizard did it.
  
  [1x] ...This is all a distraction, of course. Whatever I'm fighting is strong enough to eat me and prooobably Srovy? Which makes it excessively likely that it can tank everything the Everything Sentry Guns just through at it. Hopefully it's not expecting them and so will still get stalled, but I'm not going to bet on it. It could totally be inviolate. Hence the distraction.
  When faced with an opponent of great defensive/counteraction potency, as this opponent will likely be if the above was unsuccessful(and if the above worked, I can spare an action on this), killing them is of course difficult, but that's not what I'm trying to do anyway, yet. I don't know enough about whatever the fliggle this is, goal number uno is to stall. So, to avoid the hypothesised counteraction/defensive potency, my actual stalling method is indirect. Indeed, I will not, technically speaking, do anything to the opponent. Rather, I set up a spell to, and also personally make sure to, keep a close eye on its position, my allies, and the areas around them, and if at any point the oppositional being/force approaches me or an ally of mine or seems to be targeting them, I/my spell teleport(s) said target away! The destination location will be random, on the battlefield, and not particularly proximate to the foe. If teleportation doesn't work (I have a few ideas of ways, if not whys, it wouldn't but best not to give reality ideas), Telekinesis will throw the targets out of the way! If that doesn't work, then the target explodes! It's a specialised type of explosion which doesn't hurt people, really more like being transmuted into sapient smoke, it's not really important how it works but it spreads out the person so if you tried to eat them you'd get the equivalent of a fingernail clipping per chomp instead of an entire body. and for most of the teleportation-and-telekinesis counters I can think of it also throws the opponent into a wall, but that's secondary. The point is that Whatever this thing is, it's not getting to anyone!
  
  [1x] now that-blargleblargblg-lr-blg-wff iff muo paff swuff kwming douguus innoo mie moufh-cough, hak.
  Ahem.
  "Why did my past self just cram drugs into my mouth."
  "Fair question, ah, I heard you needed help or drugs."
  "So you decided to give me both, right?"
  "Well..."
  "So you decided to give me boat, right?"
  "What?"
  "The drugs are kicking me there are boats everywhere are any of these nedbens?"
  "Great job sounding drugged there. really, fantastic."
  "Thankks i tery . wow, theras a lot ff tyelow there, ibets theres soom orz to..."
  "..."
  "tough crowd, wehsould havem fight for us!"
  By this point, my perception of reality has either degraded far enough that I won't be saying anything coherent/real, or FIVE RECTANGLES has turned into a small duck and started bleeding Nedbens and confetti, the ground has turned into a giant Colosseum boat, surrounded by boats with a battle-ready audience on them, and half the boats are have banners saying things like "THE CASUS BELI IS BEARS", "some of our plans include resolving the limitations of REALITY. and some of them are about MEMES", and "Don't Do Drugs, Be Drugs". That last one's good advice! Unfortunately, what are drugs? what are drugs, drugs? drugs are drugs? no? rugs? yugs? where did all these rugs come from, and why are they on fire? kaleidoscopic fire, specifically? the audience seems immune to rugs, though. The audience. the audience. the audience. Am I part of the audience? I haven't died from a rug yet, so I must be. The audience. the audience. there is no audience. But I am the audience. there is an audience. what is the audience? the audience is the audience. The audience prays the pain is love itself, the main ecological problem. for the various problems, no one, nor the kids, nor the course of all. It is important to focus on what is happening, it is important to invest now, and the bed is not long, but the consequences We live with improve the convenience lion of the lake against fear. The life is pure time and the lion is the pain. That's a lot of money a lot of of lot lot money of money golden shining golden yellow colors fingers colors-
  BLEEEURG
  Alright now that... most... of those drugs are out of my system let's see what actually... happened. Uh...
  
  {{{The intention of this action is to summon a Nedben by the power of drugs. This is the 'intention' in the sense that it is... a result I half expect? However, the action is drugs. It became drugs for reasons unrelated to nedben- the pseudo-faux-conversation in the JOE(Past) tab naturally developed up to 'Just for that (drugs is) what I'm giving him' without consideration of nedben and thereby required at least one action be drugs. Being drugs, the action is of course unpredictable and it's not clear what, if anything, happened. Viable options besides summoning nedben include: turning the five-rectangles into a small duck, summoning a tough crowd to fight for me, a rain of metaphysically potent flaming rugs, or a lion of a lake which opposes fear.
  This action has more than one action of power behind it, because it is sort-of a team action between JOE(Past) and DefJOE(Past). In the sense that JOE shoved drugs into DefJOEs mouth and DefJOE then was on drugs. Srovy may or may not have also contributed. If the action is stronger than the effect, probably just trigger multiple of the effects.}}}
• Past-JOE uses brown text to be distinct from DefJOE in dialogue. This has no new implications about his character; if it wouldn't be confusing he would've been cyan
  Srovy dialogue, Red, reflects my attempts to analogise this situation to another situation and then predict what might be said in that situation and then translate it back. It is still written by me, and the whole thing is perhaps best thought of as a metaphor, something something umineko something something.
  "-nd that something is?"
  "Something. You're not sure what it is."
  "Well, what does i-something look like?"
  "you're not sure."
  "I'm-What, am I on All the drugs? how am I not sure wha-"
  "Hey past me! I'm you, from the future! it is the time of apocalypse now! Whatever our default plan was, it would've ended with you getting eaten. and Srovy too! You would've respawned, as you can see from, well, me, but... Anyway, do something different this time! -And then he runs over to the templars and starts yelling some nonsense about lizards."
  "Time travel? That just makes it more obvious I'm on drugs."
  "would I do that to you?"
  "Yes."
  "But I was napping last time."
  "Yeah, so?"
  "Well, if you're on drugs, then that means it's time for everyones favourite game-"
  "fine, fine, so I'm not on the drugs. I'll take this seriously or something."
  "alright, the thing seems-"
  "though for the record if I'm on the drugs I totally called it"
  "You're not on the drugs-"
  "I'm just saying if I a-"
  "-yet."
  "-m-wait what do you mean 'yet'."
  "Yet. Anyway, future you is holding off the thing and he looks like he needs help..."
  "Alright."
  "Or drugs."
  "Just for that that's what I'm giving him."
  "See, I totally knew you were gonna be on drugs eventually."
  "it's a future me, doesn't count. Anyway..."
  [First Action+possible Srovy support.] Alright, I portal over to future me and sneak attack him with a lump of drugs you left in Snake Pants Guys mountain, jamming them right into his mouth. he coughs and sputters a bit, then deadpans "Why did my past self just cram drugs into my mouth."
  "Fair question, ah, I heard you needed help or drugs."
  "So you decided to give me both, right?"
  "Well..."
  "So you decided to give mboat, right?" he repeats.
  "What?"
  "The drugs are kicking me there are boats everywhere are any of these nedbens?"
  "Great job sounding drugged there. really, fantastic."
  "Thankks i tery . wow, theras a lot ff tyelow there, ibets theres soom orz to..."
  "..."
  "tough crowd, wehsould havem fight for us!"
  Wait, since when do you know what an orz is? What a whats a what? You said an orz, that's a thing I didn't know you knew about. Hey, I didn't say it. your future self did. ...the orz is a higher-dimensional entity which acts like- nevermind. my question stands. Why would you think I knew what that is? Because you just said it? No I didn't?
  ...
  Oh.
  I was wondering why you were trying to provide dialogue for a version of me.
  So like, this is actually a thing, and I'm not-canonically- on drugs?
  More then just that. employ your imagination.
  [Null Action] So if I'm not on drugs, what in the world Is that thing? {{{Scan}}}
  [Second Action] And if this is actually a thing putting him on drugs was probably a mistake, but it's a bit late to do something about that. What'd he do while we were talking, again... looks like he put down a bunch of sentry guns aimed at the... whatever it is, and did a something magical? Very defensive. He did say it ate me. Fair. I'm not sure I can really help with that, I don't even have astral right now, but I can attack the thing. I grow some bone swords out of my hands and a coil of flesh thread. Flesh thread? I'm not a biologist there's probably a body part that can be a rope. Intestines, let's go with intestines. Then I throw the bone swords at the whatsit. Since they're still attached to the intestines, I can still control them, and I have them start leaking various harmful biological materials and growing spikes into the thingy... Man, blood elementalism sucks at ranged combat. Because that's not the thing it is the do? I guess...{{{intended to inflict negative regen on the entity, preferably permanent.}}}
  [Third Action] I then summon my release blade aThis is the templar sidequest, we don't have any of that stuff. Don't we? the blades are soulbound, or something. Do we remember they exist? Wait, didn't we use them at some point? I distinctly recall you hid a weapon inside a chainsaw... no, but we can summon these so we wouldn't need to hide them. What did you hide inside a chainsaw? That was so long ago, man. I don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure we were hiding our identities from the templars until just now so obviously we wouldn't use our distinctive soulbound katanae. Yes. this definitely isn't a retcon of any kind. I summon my release blade and start charging it with Time elemental energy, which I am Mostly sure was my second element on this sidequest. I'd charge it with blood too, but I'm using that on charging up the bone swords.
  {{{This action is preparatory. Note to self, Glyph Chestplate's astral and blood is blood.}}}

Click to shrink...

I get some air! Thank you! You also have your friends sort through what's inside the Hierarch of Void's sylladex.
You want more detail? Okay. It's full of forensics kits and spy equipment. Things for espionage and the gathering of intelligence. Various binoculars, telescopes, night vision goggles, flashlights and the like. There are also many, many volumes of books and files on the collected personal information of various people he and his worshippers stalk and doxx.
You enter the Engietech Drone and start absorbing BADAM's energy. You take in some of his power, but then just like a similar golden substance, the pineapple, BADAM's energy starts eating you. 60,000 Damage, -2 Charge from JOE.

The You in the past convinces some Templars to assist, and also helps me get a read on whatever it is. My glasses ping through the being's structure, and it-
It's telling me too much. A multitude of names, more than I can possibly go through right now, but one stands out to me in particular. A name which hurts to think about, much less say aloud.

Are you ready for it?

This creature's name is BRINE.

In a strange coincidence, you did tell the Templars the truth.
You really are? were? did? fight a RED DRAGON.

[???][TERMINUS] BRINE. 200/200 Hp.
ACTION(Cosmos Denial): In many stories, BRINE was the cause of the end of countless worlds. Expect anything.
PASSIVES:
Corruption: [CORRUPTED]

Your Everything Sentry Guns begin to fire a stream of everything on BRINE. Many of the projectiles evaporate within his proximity, but those that do remain push him back, dealing 5 damage in the process. At the same time, you apply teleportation spells to your past self and his allies.

As your past self stuff drugs into you, a Nedben appears.

Meanwhile, your Past Self also does other stuff. He scans BRINE, but gets nothing else of note, so he scans the Nedben as well.

Nedben. 25/25 Hp.
ACTIONS: A Nedben is a Universe Repairbeing, an automated response to universal disaster. It seems this is the only one currently present.
PASSIVE:
drugs: a nedben is made of drugs
aeiou: and sometimes y

Then, he makes some Bone Swords and hooks them into BRINE, which begin to eat away at his being. Finally, he and Srovy summon their Release Blades? I think that's what he called them. They look pretty cool!

"So, you want Nikolai dead? That can be arranged."

ACTION 1/2+10 Charge: Run over Labolas with a Train

The Sylveon Cowboy Whistles, a portal tears open and a train speeds out of it, in an attempt to tangle and crush labolas within it's wheels.

Of course, while it is targeting labolas, that isn't actually what it's intending to hit.

Since Nikolai is bodyguarding Labolas, Nikolai will defend Labolas, taking the blow in their place.

A simple game of the system, an attempt, at least.

"You know what this place needs? Sand."

ACTION 3+10 Charge: Change The Weather to a Sandstorm

From seemingly nowhere, a harsh wind kicks up, carrying sand from nowhere as well.

"ALRIGHT HUNTERS! Another salvo on Labolas!"

ENTITY ORDER: Attack Labolas

More used to the sudden change of weather, the Bounty Hunters and their horses are unbothered, as they fire off another round of rifle fire into BADAM's demon lackey...

of course, just like the train, the true target of this attack is Nikolai, attempting to once again use the fact that Nikolai is guarding Labolas to hit him instead.

"... You know, it occurs to me, why are we on team Summer? I guess they're the closest thing to an ANTI-BADAM faction."

Charge: 0/25

Click to shrink...

As predicted, Nikolai blocks the train from striking Labolas, taking a greatly-reduced 7 Damage. Sent rolling along the tracks, he gets back on his feet and leaps up onto the locomotive, planting his sword through it's roof to use as an anchor. As the sandstorm picks up, he fades into the swirling vertex of hot air and rough grains, resembling a mirage standing on top of the train.

Action 1 (Got a TL;DR at the end of the action): As Badam tells John to chill, John simply shakes his head. "I know man. I don't blame you. This just feels awkward, buddy. Especially since everybody else apparently hopped onto team Summer instead of AG... Meh. If I really wanted to fit in here, I'd be a wizard or something stupid like that, anyways. Relevancy has never been my main prowess... Anyways, Badam, even though I'm about to totally SHRED you, I want you to know I do it with all the gentlemanly respect I absolutely lack." John offers Badam his hand to shake, but accidentally slams his fingers into the Engitech Drone that's bodyguarding Badam. "I see," John mumbles, shaking his hand out, trying not to wince too hard with his slightly hurt voice. "I can already feel this rift between us, buddy. It's sad to see." John sucks on his fingers a bit. That Drone... John has no clue who Engie is, but that dude knows his Metal. "I guess I'll just have to go all Rage Against the Machine on this thing. Or did I already use Bulls on Parade...? Probably..."

John's head then proceeds to fall off. Totally unrelated to his hand injury, mind you. Thinking: his bane. His head decides to just get up and walk away -er, roll away would be more accurate, probably. Rolls. Like a stone. It waits for him there. Alone.

Meanwhile, as the narration makes references, a NEW HEAD grows on John's shoulders! Amazing! Just "pop!" and it's there. An incredible feet of athleticism only matched by his other head's lack thereof. But there's something different about his new head: it lacks the mohawk. His entire personality! Ruined! What a shame. Instead, he has long, brown locks of hair that hang down from the top of his head and bundle over his eyes, masking his face in a twister of curls. And, like a Potato Head, it also comes with new ACCESSORIES! Replacing the overbearing piercings all over his face is a massive set of headphones that are physically nailed into his head, totally encompassing his ears in their cushy black padding. Strangely enough, John's various spike bands are also replaced with long shackles, whose chains seem to stretch back behind him into the ethereal void beyond. Under the weight of those heavy bands, he seems to hunch over, taking long, methodical steps as he backs away from the Engietech Drone.

In an unearthly deep voice, John's new mouth begins to murmur two lines of song, repeating them like an incantation, metal song notes falling from his lips as he grumbles, "Nail in my head, from my creator. You gave me life now show me how to live."

As he sings, John's massive headphones begin to ring, an annoying bell tone, loud enough to be heard from beneath the heavy cuffs that cover his ears. It wavers with a twittering insanity, gaining volume as it continues to scream. Beneath its tone, John continues to mumble the lines, and the metal notes stir beneath him. Shaking at his feet, the notes morph, changing into the shapes of twisted nails, rotted at the tip, but piercingly sharp. The warped metal floats into the air, humming with the exact same sound as the ringing in John's head.

The chorus continues, splintering toward the Engietech Drone in an ever-rising wave. Beneath its force, the Drone begins to feel heavy. It falls to its knees, crumpling down as its golden parts seem to grow denser around it. John's head barely gives notice. Yet, as the Drone gives a loud clatter, falling deeper into the floor of the Last Ark, John ends his lines. Immediately, his voice rolls into a different verse.

"Built with stolen parts," he murmurs, the nails shooting forward, aiming for the Engietech Drone. "Telephone in my heart." The nails attack the Drone like a swarm of suicidal bees, piercing its shell as they continue to vibrate with song. "Someone get me a priest." As they make contact, the song grows louder within the Drone's grinding gears, shaking the machine's golden core a violent, quaking force. Taking a breath, John continues, "To put my mind to bed-" The Drone is pushed further into the ground, its armor bending under the force that encompasses its body. "This ringing in my head." The Drone's power source begins to scream in agony. "Is this a cure?" Rust covers the Drone at every impact point, corroding it both outside and within, tearing its joints apart into a fine dust. "Or is this a disease?"

John stops singing. No one can hear. The sound of the bell still clatters forcefully around them, pouring from John's numb head as the Engitech Drone breaks under the pressure. John approaches the Engitech Drone, lumbering forward as he holds out his hand, a massive metal spike appearing in it as his fingers close around it. Swinging the spike's flat head, he changes his grip, holding it in both hands of his hunched shoulders. Stopping before the Engietech Drone, John towers above it, looking down with disdain under his hair-masked face. He raises both his arms, holding the spike menacingly over the fallen drone. Then, with a single move, he stabs it downward, thrusting it through the drone's head with a sickening crunch as the bells finally silence.

John stands over the ruin for a moment, taking in his work. Then, his long curls turn to Badam, and he murmurs, "And in the afterbirth on the quiet earth, let the stains remind you of. You thought you made a man. You better think again, before my role defines you." John then turns away, stalking off as his chains clatter behind him.

TL;DR: Menace the Engietech Drone with rusty nails. As many as I can throw at it.

Actions 2 & 3 (Just skip the lullaby. The action is at the end.): Stepping away, John shakes out his head. His hair is whirlwind around his head, blurring his face as his new head fades. Like a wet dog, the edgy head disappears, and the old, loveable mohawk returns. His mouth curls open, almost disgusted as his tongue lips his receding upper lip. "I need to get some less edgy actions," he spits, still walking as his spike bands reappear. Without a thought, John steps up onto his floating platform, where his guitar case waits, lonely. "Whatever happened to my silly instrument attacks? Gosh. There's gotta be something easy to whack with-"

John then notices what he did to Ipos. He breaks down laughing. "Oh, that's great!" he says, wiping a tear from his eye. "Now I can rob another Adam of his sword!"

The speaker platform floats down, stopping just in front of the two Adams. Still chuckling, John greets them, "HEY buddies! I'm on your side! AG, right? You are Adams, yes? Kings of Earth? Why do you need to serve some idiot yellow dude? You are your own men- man- time travelers- whatever! I don't know! THIS IS WHY LOGAN WON'T LET ME KEEP MY TIME VAN!!!" John stops himself for a moment, regaining his chill. "Okay," he continues. "let's try this again. What are you doing serving goldy pants over there? Shouldn't you be hunting down the Ace of Clubs- I mean Spades. Sorry. Not a big poker player either. Could never quite get the fireplace working properly." John stops again, lost in some irrelevant tangent. After a few moments, he shakes his head out again. "Sorry fellas. Just reattached this thing. It's all wonky. How about this? I'm gonna remind you both of who you are, got it? I have the perfect song."

John sings them a lullaby.

"Hush little Adams don't say a word.
"John is gonna kill you a Hark-en-er.
"And if that Ace of Spades won't die,
"HM-AS Free-dom is gonna fly.
"And if that shuttle falls from space,
"Adam'll lead the hu-man race.
"And with his saber at the helm,
"Adam's gonna rule the entire realm.
"With the 'mod-der fallen dead,
"Adam will be God in her stead.
"Finally with his men amassed,
"Adam will rule all time at last.
"So hush little Adams, don't you cry.
"The Ace of Spades will surely die."

As John sings, the Adams both begin to feel weary. The weight of changing time closes their eyes, and they both fall into a deep sleep.

And while they do that, John sneaks over, steals Ipos Adam's "TIME SWORD" and runs off, covering his mouth to keep himself from laughing.

Click to shrink...

By punching enough nail-holes into the Engietech Drone, you deal 50,000 damage and allow JOE to escape, lowering it's armour as well!
You also make Ipos-Adam fall asleep and steal his TIME SWORD. BADAM, on the other hand.

"YOU DREAM. I EXIST."

"Oh, well that's just great. We get transported to the dystopian alternate timeline by Psychopath the Bad at his Job" Smirk points at BADAM "being possessed by what I assume is a demon of some variety (Adam, assuming we get out of this and I don't make a point to kill you in the process, we will have a significant quantity of words on your lack of anti Balefire measures), and we also get to deal with an idiot who is convinced this is all somehow a good thing. Fan fricking tastic... Although, now that I THINK ABOUT IT-"

Smirk suddenly warps behind Mister Voiddork the Edgy (Void Hierarch)

"I THINK I'VE GOT A GREAT USE FOR YOU!"
The look on Smirk's face makes it very obvious the Void Hierarch will not agree on his definition of 'great'.

Actions:

Smirk's descendancy halo begins to flare up around him, images, logos and icons swirling around him, but something feels off. For one thing, the logos are now crimson instead of green, and for another, which logos they are has changed. No more are they symbols of peace, or heroism. Now they are the antihero, and the utilitarian. He touches his hand to the ground, and suddenly, pinpricks of crimson light spread all along the ground throughout the area, and then start to rise from it, somehow making a wireframe as they do.

Before the Hierarch can truly understand what this means, one of the pinpricks leaps from the ground between his legs, kicking him skywards. "You know, if this is a world of illumination, when there is quiet throughout, and all the stars are snuffed out, then it's only fitting you go as well. You are already too loud, and any good god should be a beacon greater than a star!"
Smirk appears before the Hierarch in a mesh of the pinpricks seemingly in the form of armor, and uses both fists to SLAM the Hierarch away from the Arbiter, the pinpricks driving deep into his stomach. "Then again, maybe not. Who knows, you might make a fun beach ball." Smirk grins eerily at this, before watching a pinprick shoot straight from off to his side, as if from a sniper round, and into the Hierarch's head. And then another one. And then another one. And then another one. And then, well this is getting repetitive.

Smirk then makes a motion with his left hand, and a massive chain mace made of these pinpricks seems to form over his head, before swinging itself, and slamming into the Hierarch, accelerating him around in a wide circle, before launching him further away.

Smirk looks at a watch which randomly appeared on his wrist. "My my, look at the time. Three seconds until lunch time." When he looks up, he's right in front of the Hierarch's present trajectory, and a larger pinprick mesh, this time forming a dragon of the crimson light, forms around him, and breathes out a spray of the lights at the incoming Hierarch. "Huh, still hasn't thawed out. Oh well. Guess there's nothing for it."

As the Hierarch might think he's finally flying away from the onslaught, and maybe to safety, the dragon morphs into a gigantic, oversized dragon turtle, which proceeds to rear one of it's legs, before Smirk says "I wish I was about to kick you out into the jaws of that thing which destroyed everything else in the Void." The Giant Light Bowser then swings it's leg forwards, "Free Will Chump!" connecting with the Hierarch, and launching him skywards, through a portal deep in the middle of the nothingness, and into a cloud of Smirk patent pending time dilation, this time making him incredibly slow relative to the world around him. Smirk then gets out a law chair, some popcorn, and watches to see whatever the thing which swept away the dirt would do to a Void God. His smile has not stopped being eerie.

(Long story short, Smirk goes ballistic on the Void Hierarch, and then lets whatever it is that destroyed the Void eat the leftovers, hoping to see more details of what it is as a result, so I guess scan from there.)

Click to shrink...

You pick up the Heirarch of Void and throw him out of orbit. As he looks around in fear, they appear. Larger than your projection, BRINE swallows the Hierarch in a single bite. As he begins to integrate the power to destroy the Void Aspect into himself, he looks at you through the portal.

MY SILENCE HAS BEEN DISTURBED. HELLO, SMIRK.

With its tendrils- razor-sharp, remember- Kslerajerk performs Elven-linguistic surgery on itselves, with a swift punctual [cut] separating Kslerà from Jerk.
Jerk (formerly Leraje) maintains their [being eaten by Jerk] status. [Why]? Primarily because Jerks tend to devolve into social autocannibalism by virtue of their jerkdom, and our whole schtick here is blurring the lines between the figurative and the real by way of one eldritch, hungry squidy boy.
But also because a Jerk plus why makes for a tasty snack.

Click to shrink...

Once again possessing a physical body, as Jerk takes his first steps away from Kslerà, bleeding cuts open up across their body. Rapidly desiccating from the sandstorm, they fall over and mummify on the spot, completing their transformation from living incorporeality to dead tangibility.

Something something "taunt guy who's immune to projectiles, Extra Finger, Charge 2" something something

Click to shrink...

Jerk is dead.
You add a Finger to Devil's Hand, making it even stronger.

The m- Eris, remains unperturbed as their invisibility is ripped away. Their expression continues to remain blank as they hover there- and are cut free by the Arbiter, giving them a short nod.

"My reasons are my own. I would prefer not to allow a mess such as this continue- Oh, strangulation." They comment, tilting their head. Sighing, they clench their fist- the air responding as a rippling absence in the shape of a massive hand forms above them. Floating, the absence rapidly exists through the air until it's positioned above the Heirarch of Void- and with a swipe, unleashes a one fingered assault upon them, breaking their grip on the Arbiter with a rapid barrage of hand swipes. Eris nods appreciatively, before turning to admire the consequences of their actions last round-

"...What is that drone."

The null hand dissipates back into air, and they flash over to the Engietech Drone- placing a hand on wherever it's storing it's energy. Summoning another wave of void, they attempt to erase the energy BADAM has filled it with. These really should only be refilled with Oblivion energy. It's quite risky to play with.

Click to shrink...

Since the Heirarch of Void is now dead, you poke the Engietech Drone for a critical 125k damage. Is it now Half-Empty, or Half-Full?

Nothing makes sense.

This is an objectively false statement, because the universe fundamentally does make sense when you get down to it, and Alan of all people should really know that, but he's finding it hard to believe right now. What's Nikolai's deal? How is he here? What about the Hierarch of Void, what about Void makes him the only one that made it through? What's even going on with "Adam", is Badam Adam or not? How did the universe end? Why does the pain keep coming?

He pushes himself to his feet, one limb at a time, struggling to stay afoot even with the aid of his staff. His pupils have ragged Mandelbrot edges, his irises a barely perceptible fringe. He feels vulnerable. He is vulnerable. And he's not going to sit there and do nothing about it.

-----

First, the Hierarch. Who's strangling the Arbiter. He has four arms and two legs, very top-heavy. And worse yet, three of those arms are on one side. Alan redistributes his limbs to make them more symmetrical, moving one summoned arm down and turning it into a center leg and another summoned arm to the middle of his chest to be a center arm. This spreading-out of arms also hopefully gives the Arbiter a chance to break the chokehold.

Then Alan sees Smirk coming in with a much larger attack, and decides the rest of his turn is likely better spent elsewhere. (It would feel kind of cheat-y to say I commit no action power to this because I already saw in the partial next dop that Smirk is dead, but division of action power seems kind of flexible here anyways, so, idk.)

-----

First, he talks more to Adam.

ALAN: This is not the original timeline's Nikolai.
ALAN: The original Nikolai is dead.
ALAN: ...
ALAN: When Badam split apart from you, right before that happened, you said "Never again."
ALAN: Badam is someone you have encountered before.
ALAN: Badam was already inside you and was simply awakened, empowered, set free, or similar.
ALAN: Conversely, I am on the wrong track: Badam is a new entity created by Nedben's actions.
ALAN: Badam cannot be considered to either have been already present or a new entity, he is a fork of you.
ALAN: You don't know which of the above three statements is the case.
ALAN: You consider yourself to have a good understanding of Badam's nature.
ALAN: Nedben tried to "sever a 90HP [AG] body from a 90Charge [MSN] Descendant." You are the [AG] body, Badam is the [MSN] Descendant.
ALAN: The opposite is true, you are the [MSN] Descendant, Badam is the [AG] Body.
ALAN: Alternatively, this distinction is meaningless, Nedben did not in fact "sever a 90HP [AG] body from a 90Charge [MSN] Descendant" and the split between you and Badam is along entirely different lines.
ALAN: Badam is an embodiment of the Tetris of the Arbiter.
ALAN: Circling back, Past "Adam" is what is left when Badam was separated from Ipos.
ALAN: You knew this would be the case.
ALAN: You know what would be left behind if Leraje and Labolas were sundered in the same way.
ALAN: Badam is himself a composite of Part of You and some other entity.
ALAN: Badam is Baldr.
ALAN: Badam is associated with Baldr.
ALAN: You don't know who Baldr is.
ALAN: You know why Badam performed the mockery of offering salvation that he did during this timeline's apocalypse.
ALAN: Badam did it just for kicks.
ALAN: You consider yourself to understand Badam's motivations well.
ALAN: And while I'm at it... Four-letter names that go A consonant A consonant are awesome. Heh.

-----

Alan still isn't sure how to go after Badam directly, especially not without Adam's highlights. There's too many unknowns. Some of the demons, though... he knows what he could do about one of them.

Most of my action power:

Alan advances towards Nikolai-Labolas, feet falling heavily on the ground. He draws a nimbus of Order energy around himself, but it is ragged and torn. Thin black lines snake out from his footsteps, tracing cracks in the floor, turning randomly at right angles until they self-collide and annihilate. Everything is terribly wrong, but impossible though Alan finds it to look upon it directly, there is something to be learned from the way the world breaks. He snatches a crack off the ground a moment before it snuffs out, then folds it into a triangle, three edges and nothing else. He throws it at Nikolai-Labolas like a shuriken, and the air cracks with the sound of its passage.

Just before it strikes Nikolai-Labolas, the crack is intercepted by Nikolai-Labolas. However, in the process, it drops one layer of abstraction deeper. Now there are more cracks inside the crack, a second upside-down triangle subdividing the first. The moment before the new inner attack hits home, it is blocked by Nikolai-Labolas. Two layers in, the pattern is even more complex. Each of the three outer triangles formed by the removal of the inner triangle now itself contains a triangle, aiming to sever Nikolai-Labolas in three places at once. Before that can happen, Nikolai-Labloas intercedes and takes the attack. Another layer of triangles springs forth, only to be redirected to hitting Nikolai-Labolas... The fractal has no bottom. Each layer only brings more cracks, an infinite number of infinitesimal triangles at the bottom of an infinite bodyguard chain inflicting an infinite number of wounds.

Click to shrink...

Let's see, let me try something:
This is not the original timeline's Nikolai. Unknown.
The original Nikolai is dead.
When Badam split apart from you, right before that happened, you said "Never again."
Badam is someone you have encountered before.
The opposite is true, you are the [MSN] Descendant, Badam is the [AG] Body.
Badam is an embodiment of the Tetris of the Arbiter.
Circling back, Past "Adam" is what is left when Badam was separated from Ipos.
You knew this would be the case.
You know what would be left behind if Leraje and Labolas were sundered in the same way.
Badam is himself a composite of Part of You and some other entity.
Badam is BALDR.
You know why Badam performed the mockery of offering salvation that he did during this timeline's apocalypse.
Badam did it just for kicks.
And while I'm at it... Four-letter names that go A consonant A consonant are awesome. Heh.

While they remain suppressed by the Hierarch of Void, you paint cracks on Nikolai-Labolas, and your spell starts fighting against their rapidly-recovering resistance to magic. Labolas takes the triangle first, their resistance to magic halving it's effects. 1(0) Damage to Labolas.
Nikolai takes it next, their armor blocking the blow. 3(0) Damage to Nikolai. Then Labolas again, 9(4) Damage.
The Hierarch of Void's suppression wears off, as Nikolai's armor goes back to it's full strength. 27(17) Damage. Finally, Labolas' Magic Immunity allows them to completely absorb the presumably 81 damage they otherwise would've taken, as well as the rest of the spell.

---

Leaving Xanadu, BADAM teleports in front of SMIRK and starts laughing like a maniac in front of their face.
"BRAVO, BRAVO. YOU'VE REALLY DONE IT NOW! WAKING JORMUNGANDR. WHAT EVEN WAS YOUR PLAN?"

BRINE's attention turns to BADAM.

BALDR. WE HAD AN AGREEMENT. REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT YOUR TOYS?

"I DO! AS LONG AS NOTHING LEFT XANADU, YOU WOULD LEAVE IT ALONE."

AND WHAT HAPPENED JUST NOW?

"SMIRK THREW THE HIERARCH OF VOID AT YOU," he says sheepishly. "I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING RIGHT NOW, CAN YOU WAIT JUST A LITTLE WHILE LONGER?"

...

"PRETTY PLEASE?"

YOU HAVE UNTIL I FINISH WITH SMIRK.

"OH! THAT REMINDS ME! LISTEN CLOSELY." Leaning over to BRINE, BADAM whispers into his ear. As he does, a grin crosses over the Dragon's face.

VERY WELL. IT IS TIME FOR A REUNION.

As BRINE takes a deep breath, the Void wrinkles as everything comes a little bit closer to him. The cloud of air he blows out solidifies into an elongated yet familiar figure.

BALDR TELLS ME YOU HAD UNFINISHED BUSINESS WITH XAVIER. ONCE YOU ARE DONE WITH HIM, I LAND ON XANADU.

As Xavier? gets ready to attack Smirk, BADAM teleports back to the surface of Xanadu. Making a gesture with his hands, he commands the Engietech Drone to begin fighting the Conceptual Bear Nedben summoned. It begins by somehow reverse-punching the ground, sealing back up the crack the Bear previously dug into Xanadu. It continues to guard BADAM.

"Adam" summons another copy of himself from the past. This causes a Time Paradox and causes all of them to take 5 damage.
The first Past "Adam" uses his TIME SWORD to kill a Bounty Hunter and gives the horse to the Present "Adam".

Atop the train, the sandstorm whips around Nikolai. Like those who fought in the crusades, it cleans his armor, polishing it into a mirrorlike finish. If you didn't know anything about him, you'd think he was a knight in shining armor. The bounty hunters fire on him, their bullets completely failing to pierce through his armor. As Labolas continues to further buff him, increasing his armor even higher, Nikolai. Starts. Talking.

In the past, a squad of Templars arrive on the field. In response to this, BRINE roars with his entire body, changing the ambient sound around him into Elemental energy. In addition to this, nine slender creatures tear themselves out of his body, their flesh blackening as they separate from him.

We've seen these creatures before, with the Dark God. We didn't have a name then, but now I have these glasses.
They tell me that they're called Endermen.

...I can't deal with this right now, I just survived an attempted strangle-kill and need to rest a bit. I will, however lock down BADAM's Future-Sight.
There we go, he won't be able to dodge this round. Use this opportunity well, OK? Don't poke me for the next bit.

---

Itinerary:
Defeat BADAM.
Investigate this timeline.
Please kill Nikolai for me.
SMIRK: STALL BRINE AS LONG AS YOU CAN

Current Godmodder Hp: N/A

---

Gold Timeline: Xanadu.
WEATHER: ???
FIELD: ???

[BOSS] BUILDER·BADAM. 66/90 Hp. Twilight Providence: 75 SHP! +100% Accuracy. Deflects Projectiles.
[PB][ELITE] Engietech Drone. 115,000/350,000 Hp. Attuned Element: BADAM! Bodyguarding BUILDER·BADAM!
[PB][ELITE] Ipos "Adam". 50/90 Hp. +100% Accuracy. Horse: 20,000 Hp.
[PB] Past "Adam". 20/25 Hp. +100% Accuracy. +100% Dodge. x2
[PB][ELITE] Jerk. -5/90 Hp. Deflects Projectiles! Counters! Incorporeal! Being eaten by Kslerajerk!
[PB][ELITE] Nikolai-Labolas. (Nikolai: 26/50 Hp. 24 Armour. Bodyguarding Labolas.) (Labolas: 35/90 Hp. Immune to Magic! Bodyguarding Nikolai! Boosting Nikolai: +35,000 damage per hit!) Sandstorm: 55,000 Damage /Round! (its getting mitigated by his Armor, it's too high. Retarget it on someone else?)

[Summer] The Arbiter. 70/70 Hp. Void: 15/50. Anteumbra! Penumbra Phantasm: +15 Void Per Round!
[Summer] Bounty Hunter. 10,000/10,000 Hp. Horse: 20,000 Hp. x4.
[Summer] Eris. 22/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Nedben. 5/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Alan. 6/25 Charge. Token! Has a Staff, but it's not a Staff of Symmetry? Just some normal Staff. It's still relevant though.
[Summer] Sylveon. 1/25 Charge. On a Horse? Maybe.
[Summer] June. 25/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Xorm. 3/25 Charge. Token! [A] Devil's Hand. Shells Loaded: 3/3. Maximum Capacity: 3. Total Shells: 6.
[Summer] JOE. 5/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Kslera. 12/25 Charge. Token!
[AG] John. 23/25 Charge. Token! In possession of the TIME SWORD!

---

Gold Timeline: JOE's Past.
WEATHER: AUDITORY ARMAGEDDON: Actions which generate noise deal 50% Sound damage back to whoever does it.
WEATHER: BARRIER: The first 100,000 damage dealt every round by the [???] Faction will be mitigated.

[???] BRINE. 195/200 Hp. Hookedx2: 6 Damage/Round!
[???] Lesser Endermen. 40,000/40,000 Hp. Teleports: 4/4. x9.

[JOE] JOE of the Past. 25/25 Charge. Release Blade: Blood, Active!
[JOE] Srovy. 125/125 Hp. Release Blade: [], Active!
[JOE] Templar Knight. 30,000/30,000 Hp. 15,000 Regen. Tenacious! Resistant to Eidokinesis. x5.
[JOE] Templar Chaplain. 50,000/50,000 Hp. 20,000 Regen. Tenacious! Resistant to Eidokinesis.

[N] Nedben. 25/25 Hp.

[Summer] Copy of JOE from the Present. 5/25 Charge.

---

Gold Timeline: Terra Nox

[???] Xavier Elem? 32/32 Hp. Primordial Barrier: 10 SHP. Attuned Element: Air.
[???] Hand As Above. 20,000 Hp. Attuned Elements: Darkness, Space.
[???] Hand So Below. 20,000 Hp. Attuned Elements: Darkness, Earth.

[Summer] Smirk. 6/25 Charge. Token!

 

[Thegoldenboy]

A fold in space opens. And a man with pale-white ashen skin, black hair, purple eyes in a tuxedo walks through. I take a deep breath tasting the air. Then I adjust my tie and use all three of my actions to charge before running of the battlefield to hide somewhere.

OOC: Hey! This seems cool, I've played DTG games before so I am familiar with the concept but it seems there are a few things added here, like theatres and stuff.

 

[The Ego]

Oh hey Gol, welcome to the game! You're from Defeat The Godmodder/the Spacebattles games, right?
Assuming that's the case quick bit of info: This game is based on the older DTGames, which is only pertinent in that "spending actions to charge" isn't really a thing here. Charge goes up passively, and goes down when you burn it on something or take damage when vulnerable.
Hope this helps, great to have you with us! If you don't already have it, PM someone in the thread (ideally DCCCV) to get a link to the DTG and DtG: DtG discords, if you want. /ooc

---

Kslerà once again slips between the subtle folds in voidic space, the reversed sky giving way from their former location to their new one: the Inside of Nikolai. It begins expelling, from its probusci, the savory bile used to pre-digest a meal. Unholy, salty Brine floods Nikolai from the inside, deliciously damaging their various internal organs.

 

[Nedben]

You are here and thus cannot escape me. Perish, BUILDER·BADAM.

As in...perishable food or something. Expire! but like, pass your best-by date.

(Also I shoot them with the headsplody red-white art Mottom-style. pichuun! I to do this with sign language but it's like shadow puppets without the shadows I can just arm it and reality gets the memo.)

(Of course, this goes right into the bodyguard...and worms into the energy supply! It's filled with the element of the person, so we can use a sympathetic chainthrough to storytell our way to the main body and attack that!)

Perishability and fuel destabilization may or may not work that way, but as the end of the world comes the endings hang heavy. If there was a promise for all this to be eaten up by the ravages of time, entropy's had it up to here with my BS and it's got a BUILDER·BADAM right there to take it out on.

 

[Sylveone46]

ACTION: 1/2/3: Charge

"Yeehaw."

ENTITY ORDERS:

The Bounty Hunters will Target Nikolai, in order to hit Labolas.

Charge 4/25

 

[JOEbob]

Present DefJOE (Past) JOE(Past)

• [1x] Oh it eats me back now does it? It thinks it GETS to eat something as good as Me? As I've established, my energy has a better power level per unit input because I am amazing and badam is not (Badam is totally lame this is my callout attack). To explain it in a different metaphorical way, think of it like this: If BADAMs energy is a Pineapple, I am a Cherenkov bomb(Cherenkov radiation is blue. in water.). I outclass him in sophistication, fundamental importance, and raw power.
  Yes, my ego is large enough to make this claim when faced with a guy who gambled, in the early days of the world, about the ultimate fate of the world.
  That is just another point in my favor. Large Egos power society, and that's a Fact™.
  But I bet that's not convincing, right? You don't know how awesome I am. Well, here's another point in my favor.
  I can control BADAM Energy!
  I am, after all, a Descended! I have performed a nonzero quantity of violence that is to some degree directed at BADAM! That means that I have his powers, at somewhere between 20% and 3.3%. That's a big range of possibilities but it has to be in them because somewhere between five and thirty descended is enough to fight off a Godmodder using the copied powers.
  Since BADAM is probably not actively controlling this energy(or at least has less direct access and so lower precision), I can simply use my copied BADAM Energy Control to command his "pineapples" to metaphorically shrivel up into nuggets of nutrition with no spikes or harmfulness at the frontier between my dronecontents-'territory' and his, scoop up the nuggets, and expand the frontier. (Even if he was actively fighting me and a descended(is he?), he wouldn't be able to replicate the ability in reverse because my ability to control my energy is 'the ability to control self-aspected energy', not 'the ability to control JOE energy',whereas Badams energy-control is copyable because I was informed it was copyable by god Himself.)
  
  [2x]But this is actually Horribly irrelevant. Except it isn't! I immediately check out of the drone after subsuming a good chunk of its Tetris energy for my use, leaving BADAMs non-subverted energy to sputter in confusion. What is Tetris energy good for? Well, God himself, who I am of course on good speaking terms with because I am just that good, informs me that Tetris is the way to Omniscience, knowing things, and unlocking information about things. And it's also a coding language but everyone else is a scrub who ignores that including BADAM, probably. Now unfortunately this means I have nobody to learn Tetris from but I still have two codes I Can input even if they won't help.
  ...
  I'll save one of them for Past!Me.
  And the other is completely useless sooooooooo
  Anyway I'm not a scrub but it's very non-scrubby to notice that sometimes, the scrubs path is actually the right path. So I use the Tetris power I stole (and the Tetris Power I can conjure using the connection I have to BADAM from sort of fighting him) to find out where THOR, KVASIR, SURTUR, NJORD and LOKI were or currently-will-be at any point in the past, present, or future. While I'm at it, I have these words for Adam.
  I assume I can't just ask Adam questions with non-yes-no answers. What follows is a series of yes-no statements which aim to narrow down when and where.
  There is no need to Actually Read or pay attention to any of these. It is probably better to simply accept that, with this series of statements, assuming that Adam has a reason to believe any of them were anywhere within several thousand universes of here (and I mean the big, sciency huge observable universe sorts), at any point in the last 300 years, I will not only know where he thinks they were down to 12 Centimeters (if he can get that precise), I will know what time it was down to the hour (third-of-an-hour if <100 years ago, 2 minutes if <10 years ago, etc.), and which one, for all five if he knows all five. You can trust my honor and also my oddly precise descriptions of what I would know.
  (((On a meta level, don't bother reading this. It really doesn't matter much. It was an interesting challenge though.)))
  
  Spoiler

  Adam has any knowledge on the locations of THOR, KVASIR, SURTUR, NJORD or LOKI at any point in the past or present.
  Adams knowledge applies to THOR.
  Adams knowledge applies to KVASIR.
  Adams knowledge applies to SURTUR.
  Adams knowledge applies to NJORD.
  Adams knowledge applies to LOKI.
  Adams knowledge about THOR is about where he is right now.
  ...not then, but less than an hour ago
  ...not then, but less than a day ago.
  ...not then, but less than a month ago
  ...not then, but less than a year ago
  ...not then, but less than two years ago
  ...not then, but less than three years ago
  ...not then, but less than four years ago
  ...not then, but less than five years ago
  ...not then, but less than six years ago
  ...not then, but less than ten years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 100 years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 300 years ago
  ...not then, but Ever.
  Adams knowledge about KVASIR is about where he is right now.
  ...not then, but less than an hour ago
  ...not then, but less than a day ago.
  ...not then, but less than a month ago
  ...not then, but less than a year ago
  ...not then, but less than two years ago
  ...not then, but less than three years ago
  ...not then, but less than four years ago
  ...not then, but less than five years ago
  ...not then, but less than six years ago
  ...not then, but less than ten years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 100 years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 300 years ago
  ...not then, but Ever.
  Adams knowledge about SURTUR is about where he is right now.
  ...not then, but less than an hour ago
  ...not then, but less than a day ago.
  ...not then, but less than a month ago
  ...not then, but less than a year ago
  ...not then, but less than two years ago
  ...not then, but less than three years ago
  ...not then, but less than four years ago
  ...not then, but less than five years ago
  ...not then, but less than six years ago
  ...not then, but less than ten years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 100 years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 300 years ago
  ...not then, but ever
  Adams knowledge about NJORD is about where he is right now.
  ...not then, but less than an hour ago
  ...not then, but less than a day ago.
  ...not then, but less than a month ago
  ...not then, but less than a year ago
  ...not then, but less than two years ago
  ...not then, but less than three years ago
  ...not then, but less than four years ago
  ...not then, but less than five years ago
  ...not then, but less than six years ago
  ...not then, but less than ten years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 100 years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 300 years ago
  ...not then, but Ever.
  Adams knowledge about Loki is about where he is right now.
  ...not then, but less than an hour ago
  ...not then, but less than a day ago.
  ...not then, but less than a month ago
  ...not then, but less than a year ago
  ...not then, but less than two years ago
  ...not then, but less than three years ago
  ...not then, but less than four years ago
  ...not then, but less than five years ago
  ...not then, but less than six years ago
  ...not then, but less than ten years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 100 years ago
  ...Not then, but less than 300 years ago
  ...not then, but Ever.
  For the first of these he knows of, the time given would be more accurate and correct if it was smaller by 64%, additively.
  ...by 32%, after answering that
  ...16%
  ...8%
  ...4%
  ...2%
  ...1%
  ...0.5%
  ...0.25%
  ...0.125%
  ...0.0625%
  ...0.0625*0.5^1%
  ...0.0625*0.5^2%
  ...0.0625*0.5^3%
  ...0.0625*0.5^4%
  ...0.0625*0.5^5%
  ...0.0625*0.5^6%
  ...0.0625*0.5^7%
  ...0.0625*0.5^8%
  ...0.0625*0.5^9%
  ...0.0625*0.5^10%
  For the second of these he knows of, the time given would be more accurate and correct if it was smaller by 64%, additively.
  ...by 32%, after answering that
  ...16%
  ...8%
  ...4%
  ...2%
  ...1%
  ...0.5%
  ...0.25%
  ...0.125%
  ...0.0625%
  ...0.0625*0.5^1%
  ...0.0625*0.5^2%
  ...0.0625*0.5^3%
  ...0.0625*0.5^4%
  ...0.0625*0.5^5%
  ...0.0625*0.5^6%
  ...0.0625*0.5^7%
  ...0.0625*0.5^8%
  ...0.0625*0.5^9%
  ...0.0625*0.5^10%
  For the third of these he knows of, the time given would be more accurate and correct if it was smaller by 64%, additively.
  ...by 32%, after answering that
  ...16%
  ...8%
  ...4%
  ...2%
  ...1%
  ...0.5%
  ...0.25%
  ...0.125%
  ...0.0625%
  ...0.0625*0.5^1%
  ...0.0625*0.5^2%
  ...0.0625*0.5^3%
  ...0.0625*0.5^4%
  ...0.0625*0.5^5%
  ...0.0625*0.5^6%
  ...0.0625*0.5^7%
  ...0.0625*0.5^8%
  ...0.0625*0.5^9%
  ...0.0625*0.5^10%
  For the fourth of these he knows of, the time given would be more accurate and correct if it was smaller by 64%, additively.
  ...by 32%, after answering that
  ...16%
  ...8%
  ...4%
  ...2%
  ...1%
  ...0.5%
  ...0.25%
  ...0.125%
  ...0.0625%
  ...0.0625*0.5^1%
  ...0.0625*0.5^2%
  ...0.0625*0.5^3%
  ...0.0625*0.5^4%
  ...0.0625*0.5^5%
  ...0.0625*0.5^6%
  ...0.0625*0.5^7%
  ...0.0625*0.5^8%
  ...0.0625*0.5^9%
  ...0.0625*0.5^10%
  For the fifth of these he knows of, the time given would be more accurate and correct if it was smaller by 64%, additively.
  ...by 32%, after answering that
  ...16%
  ...8%
  ...4%
  ...2%
  ...1%
  ...0.5%
  ...0.25%
  ...0.125%
  ...0.0625%
  ...0.0625*0.5^1%
  ...0.0625*0.5^2%
  ...0.0625*0.5^3%
  ...0.0625*0.5^4%
  ...0.0625*0.5^5%
  ...0.0625*0.5^6%
  ...0.0625*0.5^7%
  ...0.0625*0.5^8%
  ...0.0625*0.5^9%
  ...0.0625*0.5^10%
  
  From my current position, to get to the former position of the first of those he knows of at the time he gave earlier, I would not overshoot if I traveled 2^105 Meters.
  ...plus 2^104 meters
  ...highlight all the numbers you would've highlighted if I'd written this out in full: -3, -2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current position, to get to the former position of the second of those he knows of at the time he gave earlier, I would not overshoot if I traveled 2^105 Meters.
  ...plus 2^104 meters
  ...highlight all the numbers you would've highlighted if I'd written this out in full: -3, -2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current position, to get to the former position of the third of those he knows of at the time he gave earlier, I would not overshoot if I traveled 2^105 Meters.
  ...plus 2^104 meters
  ...highlight all the numbers you would've highlighted if I'd written this out in full: -3, -2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current position, to get to the former position of the fourth of those he knows of at the time he gave earlier, I would not overshoot if I traveled 2^105 Meters.
  ...plus 2^104 meters
  ...highlight all the numbers you would've highlighted if I'd written this out in full: -3, -2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current position, to get to the former position of the fifth of those he knows of at the time he gave earlier, I would not overshoot if I traveled 2^105 Meters.
  ...plus 2^104 meters
  ...highlight all the numbers you would've highlighted if I'd written this out in full: -3, -2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees clockwise for the first.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees clockwise for the second.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees clockwise for the third.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees clockwise for the fourth.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees clockwise for the fifth.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees vertically(falling on my face) for the first.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees vertically(falling on my face) for the second.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees vertically(falling on my face) for the third.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees vertically(falling on my face) for the fourth.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  From my current heading, I would need to turn 180 degrees vertically(somersaulting) for the fifth.
  ...90 degrees
  ...45
  ...45*0.5^1
  ...45*0.5^2
  ...highlight the power numbers that would be highlighted if I wrote this out in full. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103.
  The important thing is I now know where-when he thinks I should look, which should make my tetramino-based search... moderately more efficient!*
  Once I find a point-in-time-and-space where each of these Power peeps are- huh, deja vu while writing that, weird, something about subverting powers and headology-as-it-were- I send them a personalized attack! THOR receives a variant of me with red skin and martial arts who will try (and probably fail honestly) to suplex him, and then self-destruct. KVASIR gets a bolt of every element (my kind, not eidokinetic) delivered directly into his left thumb(the bolt is sentient, me, and will self-destruct), SURTUR gets a cake topped with the words 'Adrian Celstus'- it's a hunch, also the cake is sentient me and self-destructs-, NJORD gets a fjord opened on the ground beneath him(the fjord is of course me and will disappear), and LOKI gets attacked by 30 low-key roller-disco enthusiasts (all of which are altmes and then self-destruct).
  These attacks occur 'conceptually'(with otherwise-obvious physical ramifications spread out over a few hours) and/or slide up or down their personal timestreams until it won't cause a paradox or whatever, if necessary. In this way, I have as much of a claim to a Descended Copy of their powers as I have to a copy of BADAMs and the green-Ish dracomans.
  I might not know exactly what I'm up to in the past...
  (that's a lie I obviously do, or I'd be asking for directions from-Adam to the green one too)
  ...but I know I could use the help. I could always use help. help makes things easier. Even if I was going to succeed anyway, help will save time. This is also short-sightedly self-serving too because new cool powers yo!
  
  *Assuming that Tetraminos are treated as a black box and not, in fact, the solution of P=NP. Otherwise, it's impossible to make the Tetramino-based search, specifically, any more efficient. P!=NP claims that there are problems where it is easier to verify a specific proposed solution than to find the solution yourself; if P=NP, it takes just as long to solve the problem as to check a solution, and so the amount of time it takes to find the various targets is equal to, and not greater than, the time to send them their attacks(since otherwise it would take longer to solve the problem, via repeated trials, than to check a solution, via a single trial.
• Meanwhile, in the past!
  [0x] Scan the greater foe.
  [0x] and scan the lesser 9 too.
  [0x] Oh! My past self has a question! "That's disconcerting... Future me, Who's narrating... this dragon, since it's not srovy or me?" "Oh, that's easy! It's... Integer!" "the, concept of whole numbers, is narrating?" "No, Integer is his curse! He's also called Arbiter or Adrasta! The last one is his name. You don't know him." "...I... see. Where is he?" "In the future! we're vaguely connected by his narrating powers so he's still narrating my environs." There! that definitely answered ALL the questions! It's a good thing 50% of 0 is zero.
  [1x] Tetraminos! I have that powerset! yes! It occurs to me that, considering the giant Red Dragon which I have to fight, I might die! I would very like Not Die, but Die is probably unavoidable, which is why I will instead use Tetraminos to make sure I will not Dead. Subtle distinction, Dieing is the process and Death is the endstate and the endstate is the real problem. when you are Dead it is harder to do things unless you become Not-Dead or Undead. This is why I clap my hands (silently. The Tetramino-energy flame dampens the noise by not being any state of matter and it doesn't conduct through my flesh so good. not that it matters; this isn't an attack and so 50% Sound Damage is 0 Sound Damage.), using Tetraminos to input the legendary Konami Code...
  
  or, in full, UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT A B START. I also input it through head jerks for good measure, like I'm in FEZ. Since I'm using Tetraminos for this code, the result should differ from standard references- This isn't just a reference, this is a cheat code hammered into the informational underpinnings of reality.
  A cheat code which grants 30 extra Lives. Which would be visible above but there comes a point where it is simply not worth the additional delays alright? alright.
  I then soundlessly 'yell' at past me (with magic):
  "You can use this code thing too! the yellow guy did his whatever and that was an insult to the entire universe which is good enough! It's a Good Idea!"
  ...yeah looks like he's doing it. Nowhere near as Stylish as I did, though! It's surprising how much I've grown as a person!
  [1x] okay okay so there's more than just this big red guy to fight now he summoned endermen. Wait, endermen? slender black men? men which are 50% taller than a normal person?
  Well I know Exactly how you go about killing Endermen! I simply build a flat platform to stand on and a flat ceiling exactly two meters above it! The platform and ceiling are made of forcefields, because Endermen can't pick up Barrier Blocks! I think. One second.... yeah, Endermen can't pick up barrier blocks! Now these endermen can't attack anyone who stays between these two barriers, because they cannot enter this area because it is too short! and given how endermen behave (and that these are lesser endermen and therefore Not Smart), the inverse will not be true.
  ...
  Oh and I make like 30 copies of these forcefields all over and make them turn off on the same conditions as the teleportation thing(and turn on when the conditions aren't met), so the big red boi won't destroy and nullify them.
  [1x + 4 CP] But I can't spend All my time managing survival! I mean, I can. I do have allies. It's maybe even the right thing to do. But it's also lame! I am the brave captain of the ship that is this battle and I shall break new ground, find new lands, and do increasingly inadvisable things! I make a finger-gun sort of pose and begin firing concentrated, high-speed bullets of Viridescent energy into Big Red's skin. I aim for the legs and wings, specifically. Extremities, less likely to be defended, more important for a battle since I know it can shrug off whatever I target, less predictable (in the sense that there are more of them). I'm very conservative with the number of bullets I fire, though. I got this power From big red, which means he might be able to control it- heck, he might use it for blood, which is another reason I aim for the extremities. At the angles I choose, the bullets will rip through his flesh and out the other side in a fraction of a second, whether they run into more of the same or not.
  Once the bullets are through, I use the iron grip of energetic control I didn't slacken for a second to make them curve around and collect inside a very secure jar I pull out of my past selfs forgotten extradimensional bag on another continent. Don't worry, he has loads of spares and it's not like he's using them anyway. Now, why do I collect them inside this jar? because the Viridescent represents the Alkahest, which means Alchemy, yo! Now that I've got small bits of dissolved Essence Of Foe-very small bits, remember how few bullets I fired and they weren't big ones, just well-placed- I use a bit more Viridescent to dissolve twice as much of Me, regenerate the harm- this is where the CP expenditure comes in!- and then drop that into the Jar too. I then perform the standard alchemistrical procedure of recrystallising the contents by evaporating the solvent, leaving me with a jar full of material which likes me twice as much as it likes big red and has capabilities from us both.
  If you need a TL;DR, I use Viridescent to 1) hurt the dragon in a way that will hopefully impede its attacks and 2) make a thing(possibly an entity, possibly a weapon, I dunno) out of a mix of red dragon-stuff and Me-stuff using the properties of Viridescent. There is a side-hope that 3) the dragon roars in pain and so takes 50% more damage, but it's not mentioned directly because it would've disrupted the flow.
  
  [TOKEN] aaand another thing! Because this is a situation to expend what resources I have to spare. Now, not long ago, a planet flew by called Xanadu. On the standard path of time, this world would follow in its orbit- A part of Xanadu, after a fashion. So what can I do with this knowledge? Well, what do I know about Xanadu?
  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
  A stately pleasure-dome decree:
  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
  Through caverns measureless to man
  Down to a sunless sea.
  So twice five miles of fertile ground
  With walls and towers were girdled round;
  And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
  And here were forests ancient as the hills,
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
  I don't see a Kubla Khan about, but that makes sense. After all, Xanadu has only just arisen. It takes time to rise to power.
  But before Kubla Khan is Alph, the sacred river, and the caverns through which it runs; the sea to which it empties; and the ancient forests it feeds.
  Say, would you look at that? There just so happens to be a RED SEA here, abandoned by the sun. Which means, of course, that this land is the caverns measureless to man. And that makes sense, doesn't it? The hardest land to fathom is a living world, and the hardest to measure one that shifts. Measure the whole planet and a new cavern will appear- and an old vanish- by the morn, so long as you are a mere man, but not I.
  The caverns are here, the sea is here, Xanadu is... conceptually here. What remains? The forests and the river. The forests are in the Templar Kingdom proper, for there is an ancient wooded area which grows grand trees which leach Vintage out of the ground (and so many of them are harvested by the Templars workers for the Vintage they hold). What remains? Alph, the sacred river. That is not already here; The templar lands lie in a desert.
  So that flaw must be mended. Via my token of power, I create Alph, the sacred river. It winds between the dunes, and about the sky, because it is beyond such mortal things and needs no riverbed. It winds through the battlefield, resplendent and sparkling. And then it winds into the Sunless Sea.
  
  ...Mechanically, I can't find the conversion from Charge to Stats in the original post for some reason, so I can't give this stats. It might be a Terrain effect, or a regenerating entity? probably with 'water' which (being sacred) can be used for healing/buffing(and maybe automatically dampens attacks with contravene it?), and with leftover water automatically pouring onto (and hurting) the RED DRAGON. If possible, the river theoretically Starts on Xanadu or further yet, so it shouldn't be completely killable from not!Xanadu, unless BADAM has a problem with Xanadu being Xanadu'd.
  If I already have the relevant Tenet power when I make this Token expenditure, then Alph, the sacred river, is filled with and made of Quintessence, the Tenet of KVASIR. It's not Just because I'm Cyan, it's also because it fits more to Alph. But it's also because I'm Cyan.
• [Null] {{{Scan both}}}
  [Zeroth Action] So it has minions, huh? Endermen, according to the narration. ...Who narrated that if it wasn't you? How should I know? Ask your past self, he doesn't look surprised. Alright. He turns to look at you before you start talking. "That's disconcerting... Future me, Who's narrating... this dragon, since it's not srovy or me?"
  "Oh, that's easy! It's... Integer!" he explains, pointing at nowhere.
  "the, concept of whole numbers, is narrating?"
  "No, Integer is his curse! He's also called Arbiter or Adrasta! The last one is his name. You don't know him." and I also don't know him.
  "...I... see. Where is he?"
  "In the future! we're vaguely connected by his narrating powers so he's still narrating my environs." and then he stops paying attention to you.
  [Zeroth Action Two] Bah, fine. I guess I should fight these things. I summon my release blade, like, inside of my throat- inside of your throat. That sounds like pain. well, sword-swallowers... exist. I then release the energy in it. We didn't ever establish how releasing Time Energy works, did we? I dunnnnno man, probably not. So I'm going to conveniently declare that since Time Energy doesn't make explosions normally, it will instead do a time acceleration. I resummon the blade in my hand so I don't die from internal bleeding, and then run over to those endermen and stab all of their legs so they won't be able to walk anymore, and will bleed out eventually, then I run back away from them before the time acceleration wears off. I make sure to run quietly, so with any luck the sound backlash will hit the Endermen when they start screaming creepily.
  Oh, uh, Adrasta, you misnarrated my Release Blade; I charged it with Time, not Blood. Hence my releasing Time, just now, emptying the blade.
  [First Action] your future self made some kind of line of black squares with yellow bits while you were doing that, and he has something to say. Silently. "You can use this code thing too! the yellow guy did his whatever and that was an insult to the entire universe which is good enough! It's a Good Idea!" ...Alright, I guess? what is this yellow stuff, it doesn't look like Electric Energy or Energy Energy... Just ask him. He's ignoring me again, so I can't. Well, he did say it was a... 'code thing'... whatever, I try to make that line of blackish-yellow squares... thing... using whatever it is. And you succeed! obviously!
  [Second Action + 2 Charges] Now that the time energy is out of my release blade, and my Blood energy isn't being used, I charge it with blood like Adrasta thought I did the first time. Were you waiting to do this? Well... yes, sort of. I has plan. Also, since I haven't been hurt by anything, I use some of my Life energy to produce more Blood Energy. Is that a thing? Well, Blood Elementalism makes Life Energy regenerate faster... so... You know what it might not be a thing but Life Energy sacrifice was definitely... something. Several thousand years ago. It's probably possible to something with it.
  [Third Action] While I'm pouring my Blood Energy into my Release Blade, I put on the Glyph Chestplate. Oh- Adrasta's new and probably doesn't know what that is, do they? It's not like I remember what it is either. Really?-the Glyph Chestplate is one of the like eight or so Heirlooms, remember? No. There were the Order Boots, the Glyph Chestplate, the Void Helmet, the, uh, Snake Pants, and four more that I don't remember right now. Whatever. Wait, I remember one of the other ones, there was a chestplate made of floating stone bits. I really don't care. It's not like they mattered. ...Fair. But might as well use them now, right? anyway explanation! So the Heirlooms are 8 or so magical items which the non-elementalist humans in the Templar Kingdom had, collectively. Each of them had like... a noble family? It was sorta implied that the heirlooms were relevant enough to be templar level but they weren't really scaled accordingly. Srovy and I had obtained, if memory serves, the Order Boots and Glyph Chestplate. The Order Boots were white boots with a few seconds of absolute shielding with a long cooldown. the Glyph Chestplate, on the other hand, allows for the creations of various glyphs with any number of effects at will, including force-projection, anti-aging, healing, teleportation, and so on; it effectively gives you access to the Glyph Element, in the form of several metallic bands which you put on and then they form force connections like an actual chestplate but transparent and with runes all over them. We don't have the rest, I think, but the Void Helmet fires bolts of void from a gem on the same cooldown-length as the Order Boots, the chestplate just lets you make barriers out of rocks and is a chestplate, and the... I'm not sure they were actually called snake pants but they were made of snakes and their ability was to make snakes and tendrils come out of the ground and grab things. Oh, it's also implied that the Heirlooms are indestructible? not in the sense of this is an important ability they have but in the sense that destroying them is never implied as even possible.
  Anyway, the Important part is that I use the Glyph Chestplate to create glyphs on the sword-hooks I lobbed at the dragon, making them eat into it more. Srovy, you should put on the Order Boots in case it attacks you, future-me implied you might not respawn.
  {{{I imagine in the abstract that in this scenario, the reasonable action for srovy is to hang back, maybe charging his release blade, and maybe use astral elementalism to support the battlers somehow. It's difficult to predict, because the closest 'real' scenario has Srovy playing the role of the Dragon and leaves anything else Srovy-the-character does implied. which sorta matches to 'hang back, charge and support'? But I'm not sure such actions are precisely his style. maybe they get justified via an implied period of nagging him to not perform the potentially life-risking action of fighting near the dragon.
  The Templars seem like endurance battlers to me so- Given that the FOE is wounded and losing health already, from the bone swords- I infer that they would try to maintain the current state of the battle, fighting defensively with a greater focus on surviving, harrying, and outlasting than hurting directly. But if it seems the FOE can summon more endermen freely(which it kinda does), then killing the endermen or rendering them non-threats are a priority for any attempt to outlast.
  It's also possible the Templars would not trust an Elementalist's Bone Swords to continue to function / to kill a dragon, in which case they would likely attempt to inflict a similar DoT effect themselves. It might be an effect on one of their swords, or something more specialised- it would be a standard-practice enchantment if dragons were remotely common, but since this is the only dragon for thousands of years it might be something only the Chaplain is equipped with}}}

 

[Splashcat]

ALAN: This is good stuff, Adam. Thanks.

ALAN: You are Loki.
ALAN: The aid you are providing us is mistletoe-ish.
ALAN: Acting on information provided to us by you is inherently effective against Badam regardless of that information's nature.
ALAN: Badam has a weakness which has to do with the mythology surrounding Baldr.
ALAN: You think the previous statement is a plausible angle of attack but you don't actually know.

ALAN: Brine is Loki.
ALAN: Brine is Jormungandr.
ALAN: Brine speaks in green in the non-gold timeline.
ALAN: You know who all the AESIR are.
ALAN: You know who some of the AESIR are, but not all of them.

ALAN: You knew the part of you which is now part of Badam had the potential to become part of Badam because of something about that part of you.
ALAN: You knew Badam had the potential to subsume some or all of you.
ALAN: You made a deal with Badam at some point in the past.
ALAN: Badam's three demons are each composed of part of you and part of Badam.
ALAN: The parts of Badam which comprise each demon add up to the whole of Badam.
ALAN: The parts of you which comprise each demon add up to the whole of you.
ALAN: The parts of you which comprise each demon add up to the part of you which is part of Badam.
ALAN: (Sorry for the confusing phrasing)
ALAN: Splitting the other two demons in half is a strategy you recommend.
ALAN: Attempting to similarly split Badam is a possible victory condition for this fight.
ALAN: This is a victory condition you consider plausible for us to achieve relative to other potential victory conditions.
ALAN: This is a victory condition you consider acceptable relative to other potential victory conditions.
ALAN: This would result in the part of you which was split off from you returning to you.
ALAN: The part of BADAM which isn't you is BALDR.
ALAN: (And the part of BADAM which is you is not.)

ALAN: You know who Alethea killed or incapacitated that would otherwise have brought about this timeline.
ALAN: You don't know, but you have a good guess.
ALAN: It was one of the other AESIR.

Action 1: Alan slams his palm into the Engietech Drone, setting it vibrating at the same frequency as Alan's own aura, detuning it from BADAM and attuning it to Order. Also, he just plain sends it flying. That should get it out of the way for long enough to get some attacks in.

Action 2: Alan polarizes Badam's twilight, enabling attacks to pass through his SHP freely so long as they only vibrate along the vertical axis. Then he swings his staff down and hits Badam on the head.

Action 3: Alan follows it up with a sharp reversal, swinging the other end of his staff up and hitting Badam in the crotch. The blow strikes with enough force to launch Badam high into the air. The moment he lines up with a gap in the skyline, there is a sound effect, and several floors are deleted from the buildings on either side of Badam, along with Badam himself. For the first time since Tetris's debut, someone has won a game of skyline tetris.

 

[O.R.I.G.I.N.]

John smiles a bit too much as he pulls a scabbard (hand protection instrument) out of his guitar case and attaches it to one of his thirty-three (that's an estimate) studded leather belts. He slides the "Time" Sword into it with a soft whistle, and the cross guard clinks softly against the mouth of the sleeve. "Finally," he breathes, relieved. "I actually got to pull something out of my gimmick case this turn. Been WAY too long since I used it."

Momentarily satisfied, John looks at what his actions have wrought, standing tall above Xanadu on his speaker platform. Immediately, his joy is shattered. "REALLY!" he complains. "There are FOUR ADAMS on the field, and not ONE of them is doing their job! Five if you count Red voice, wherever he is. Still isn't answering my calls, by the by. I guess he got bored after I had his cops raid a fourth Pizza Hut over a suspected TIME BOMB threat. And then ordered him a prank pizza from the exact stores he raided." For a brief pause, John looks off into the distant void, reminiscing at how clever that was. If he had actually done it, that is. The Time Cops would probably claim that never happened, but HE HAS FREE WILL JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

Regardless, as he stares longingly out toward the dark void, he notices a distinct green -er, red -eh, depends on when you're looking- streak crashing around, slamming into something... voidy(?). John can't tell. But whatever it is, it's ruining his view. John takes out a pair of golden Opera Glasses (viewing instruments) and peers deeply through their outrageously tiny lenses. As his vision focuses, John gasps. It's Smirk-y face! Man, it's been awhile since John recognized Smirk-y face. Not since... Smirk tried to disintegrate a space ship with his pet cat...? Yeah, that was it. Definitely. Good times.

But as he continues to look, his Smart! Opera Glasses (Telecommunications Instrument) starts scrolling the EOTB. The figures Smirk-y is fighting become more clear, dark as they may be. And one of them makes John gasp. AGAIN! There are two hands! Woah! And one of them is attuned to... the Earth?

"ADAM!" John shouts without thinking. "WHY AREN'T YOU DOING YOUR JOB!? The Earth is that-a-way!" he exclaims with excessive pointing. "Shouldn't one of you be KING of that thing!?" John shakes his head, disgusted at the lack of Adam-enthusiasm present in the five Adams on the field. But then, as his disapproving frown begins to deepen, it suddenly flips. John grins wildly at the Hand So Below. He draws his "Time" sword, pointing its gleaming letters at the deep void, and declares, "If you guys aren't going to be Adam, I guess I'LL BE THE KING OF EARTH!"

((TL;DR 0: John realizes Adam isn't doing his job and decides to become King of Earth. No actions yet.))

Action 1: John sheaths his "Time" sword. "But first..." he amends. John kicks his guitar case on its sides, and a pile of bricks (Children's Toy Instrument) falls from the universe of clutter within. The bricks topple downward, landing on top of the Engietech drone. As they pound into the robot, the bricks land perfectly in the shape of a house. And as quickly as the bricks fall, John is down at the scene, quick drying cement (Cartoon Instrument) and a trowel (Smoothing Instrument). In a flash of gray, John slaps down the cement between the layers of bricks, smoothing each layer before the next brick of the structure can land.

In mere moments, John proves himself a Mason, building a stunning mansion around the Engietech drone. There's just one problem. It doesn't have doors. Or windows. This isn't a problem for John, of course. His parents kicked him out of the house forever ago. He lives in an RV. But for the Drone, things are a bit more-

The house explodes in a shower of broken concrete chunks. Bricks go flying everywhere. The patio is ruined. And the flying buttresses! They're... butting! -Wait, no -er, maybe. Sure. Let's go with that. And the Engietech Drone is unfortunately buried in the explosion.

John looks at the pile of rubble, confused. He thought he built everything right. Laid the foundation. Smoothed the concrete. Used the quick drying- Yeah. Quick drying cement. John checked the label. Not the quick exploding cement. That's a different pocket. The quick drying is the third chamber on the left. The exploding is fourth on the right. John didn't screw that u-

"Oh," John mutters, his face blank. "That's what went wrong. I put down all the nails last turn. The nails were supposed to be the last thing, not the first... Whoops." John shrugs. He bought his Masonry license online anyways. He's as certified as a surgeon.

((TL;DR 1: John tries (and fails) to be a Mason, blowing up a house on top of the Engietech Drone.))

Bonus Action: Well, now that that's done, John just has to get to "Terra Nox." Sounds like a bad fart, really, but if the universe says so...

John walks over to the edge of Xanadu and leans out. He is immediately met with flashing red signs that read: "Warning: Do Not Cross", "Beware of Dogs", "Keep All Body Parts Inside the Vehicle While the Ride is in Motion", "You Shall Not Pass!", "You Cannot Pass!", "One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor", "[INSERT LoTR REFERENCE HERE]", "Legit Dude, Do Me a Solid and Don't Leave", "I Mean It", "The Cake is a Lie", and "FREE ICE CREAM IF YOU SURVIVE TEN SEC-". Oddly enough, whoever made that last sign didn't have the time to finish. Strange.

"Man," John mutters to himself, "how did Smirk-y boy miss all these warning signs? And, more importantly, how haven't I broken them yet?" John casually slips under the yellow police tape and steps off into the void, his speaker platform flying beneath his feet as he sails out into the void.

((TL;DR 1.1: Slip over to the "Terra Nox" Theatre.))

Actions 2 & 3: Within moments, John arrives at "Terra Nox." John farts. It just felt right.

On his platform, John glides over to @Ender_Smirk, who's probably huffing and puffing after whatever it was he did last turn. John reaches over Smirk's shoulder pats him on the back. "Hey buddy! Long time no see! How's it been? Summoning more God-like beings to try to kill you, I see. Nice, nice. I'm John, by the way. Don't know if I ever properly introduced myself." John offers to shake Smirk's hand. If Smirk tries to shake it, John pulls his hand back and calls, "PSYCHE!" Regardless, John keeps talking. "Well, I'm here- not to help you- but to steal more useless crap. I don't know. It's this compulsion I've got. Can't help it. See, I've got this sword-" John pulls out his "Time" Sword and swings it around haphazardly, almost chopping off Smirk's thumb. Almost. "-I took it from... an Adam. And now I'm here to steal his job. King of Earth! Sounds cool. Means I get to lounge around on a throne all day, right? Something like that." John waves the thought away, clearly not caring what it means to be King. "So I'm gonna go be more distracting than you. I'll hand it to you, though, this is quite the mess. You're lucky to have my EXPERTISE."

John floats away from Smirk. He hops off his speaker platform and glides around in the void, spinning like a drunk astronaut as he gets his bearings. After flapping his arms like a bird and doggy paddling through space for a bit, John gets close enough to the Hand So Below to begin.

"LOOK OVER THERE!" he shouts to the big rocky hand. "A BUTTEFLY!" The hand is immediately confused. Firstly, it has no eyes. Problem. Secondly, this is the void. There's no-

John swings a tiny little butterfly (Intimidation Instrument) at the Hand As Below, breaking its kneecaps... which it also doesn't have...

As the Hand As Below is caught paralyzed trying to figure out what John just did, John actually starts his attack, kicking his tall speaker, which begins blaring the round's tune.

The speaker chimes to the ethereal beat as John draws his sword, his head nodding with every scratch of the song. The melody quickly breaks into a storm of ruckus, and John raises the "Time" sword to point at the Hand So Below. He looks up at the hand, a sickening smile on his face. With a silly wave, John begins to sing,

"Hey, I'm feeling tired.
"My time is gone today."

Right on cue, John flings the "Time" Sword forward. Its shining gray steel glitters in the void, cutting a line through space at it pierces the Hand So Below. Light shatters from the back of the hand as the sword emerges on the other side, drifting softly as the Hand So Below rears. Its fingers twist through the air as it seems to screech in pain.

Meanwhile, John points to Smirk and sings,

"You flirt with suicide.
"Sometimes that's okay.
"Do what other's say," he mentions, pointing at the official "itinerary" in his hand.
"I'm here standing hollow." John's AG Red flashes in his eyes, before turning gray.
"Falling away from me.
"Falling away from me."

The "Time" Sword continues to drift through the void, growing ever further from John. As it falls, the sword pulls against the Hand So Below, an invisible tether dragging it down away from John, who continues,

"Day is here fading." The void echoes with the phrase.
"That's when I'm insane." John's eyes flash red again.
"I flirt with suicide.
"Sometimes kill the pain." John's eyes flash for a third time, and AG light violently erupts from them, puncturing the Hand So Below and reflecting within the "Time" Sword's blade.
"I can't always say,
"'It's gonna be better tomorrow.'" On "tomorrow," the "Time" Blade reacts, glowing brighter as it continues to spin.
"Falling away from me.
"Falling away from me."

The speaker platform roars into the void as John raises his fist, a spiked knuckle duster (cleaning instrument) adorning his fingers. John leaps forward in midair, a halo of red light bursting from his feet as he sings,

"Beating me down!" he shouts, his fist bashing against the Hand So Below.
"Beating me, beating me
"down, down!" He assaults the shadowy hand, his knuckles exploding with red light as he pushes the Hand back.
"Into the gound." Suddenly, the Hand So Below crashes into something: a rock. That rolled. It shatters into a field of shrapnel behind it as the hand continues to fall.
"Screaming some sound!
"Beating me, beating me
"down, down!" John continues, unrelenting in his strikes.
"Into the ground."

The speaker begins to chime once more as John steps back from the Hand So Below. He slips his knuckle duster into his pocket as he takes a deep breath. His eyes seem to peer past the Hand So Below, seeing not it, but the "Time" Sword floating behind it. He almost whispers,

"Falling away from me."
"It's spinning round and round." The blade twirls through the air.
"Falling away from me."
"It's lost and can't be found." The red light dims in the blade.
"Falling away from me."
"It's spinning round and round." The light strengthens as it continues to spin.
"Falling away from me.
"Throw it down."

As John makes the last deep call, the "Time" Sword plunges downward, still dragging the Hand So Below with it. Between the two, a red vine softly glows. And John still sings,

"Beeting me down!" In his hands, he hold a pile of beets (Nutritional Instruments), fresh plucked from his guitar case.
"Beeting me, beeting me
"down, down!" He launches a barrage of beets at the Hand So Below, their brown tips creating more puncture wounds in the giant hand.
"Into the ground." The Hand So Below crashes into a nicely tilled field, absolutely ruining it.
"Screaming some sound!" As he cries, the beets seem to grown beneath the Hand So Below's skin.
"Beeting me, beeting me
"down, down!" The red stems' color drain into the body of beets.
"Into the ground." The color is injected deeper into the Hand So Below, mixing with his shadows through its earthy attunement.

The speaker taps lightly as John drops the remaining beets from his hands. He stares once more at the "Time" Sword as he chants,

"Twiiiistiiiing meeeeee." John and the "Time" Sword spin in unison.
"They woooon't go away." The beets dig further into the Hand So Below.
"So I pray." John floats on his knees, his hands flat against each other.
"Go awaaaaay!" With the final drawl, red soundwaves spread from John's lips, pushing the Hand So Below even further.

In the resulting chimes, John continues to whisper,

"Life's falling away from me.
"It's falling away from me.
"Life's falling away from me."

John falls silent for a moment, before screaming, "ADAM!" The speaker begins to roar again, scratching against the silent void. But John is "lost and can't be found". Where he stood, the "Time" Sword now float, gleaming brightly as it twists through the void. The Hand So Below is immediately confused. It doesn't have eyes to see- er, "Where is John?" it asks its non-sentient self- er. It's just confused. Just confused.

John floats behind it, right where the "Time" Sword was, the red vines clasped firmly in his hand. The speaker begins to sing for him as he yanks back on the vine, pulling the massive hand toward him. He catches the hand in a finger-lock, choking its pointer finger with his empty arm. He moves his mouth close to the hand and whispers, "Life's falling away from me." He yanks once more against the vine, and the "Time" Sword hurtles toward them. The vines coil backward through the bleeding hole in the Hand So Below that John had repeatedly pierced, and their spines slash against the hand as they recede into John's sleeve. Meanwhile, the sword cuts a red trail against the void, gleaming brightly from the vantage of Xanadu. For a moment, John's words echo in the Hand So Below's mind. Then, like a comet, the "Time" Sword's tip crashes through the Hand So Below. Its palm shatters in the impact, screaming red through empty void.

But the blade does not stop. It stabs through John's chest, protruding through his back as he keeps his hold on the Hand. John gasps at the impact. Then, he screams. The song ends, "Beating me, beating me down, down, into the ground." As the speaker cries those final words, John releases his grip, falling backward into the black abyss, dead.

...

"PSYCHE!" John suddenly shouts, appearing in a puff of popcorn kernels in front of the Hand So Below. For his final strike, he slams a headstone down on its knuckles, like a WWE wrestler with a folding chair. It shatters into a disrespecting cloud of rubble, doing relatively little to the Hand So Below. Stepping back, John laughs. "Sorry if that attack was... Korn-y!" he shouts to the hand. Still chuckling, he leans down and picks up the "Time" Sword from the void. "It took me a lot of work to get this," he tells no one in particular. Maybe Smirk. Who knows? "I'm not losing it that quickly." He sheathes the "Time" Sword once more with a smile. It's good to be King.

((TL;DR 2: Beet up the Hand So Below with the color red. And stab it. VIOLENTLY. With plenty of AG flair!))

 

[KitRougard]

Xorm considers breaking out one of his Narrator's Musical Beatdowns. In case he doesn't, Extra Finger, and pocket some CP.

 

[DCCCV]

A fold in space opens. And a man with pale-white ashen skin, black hair, purple eyes in a tuxedo walks through. I take a deep breath tasting the air. Then I adjust my tie and use all three of my actions to charge before running of the battlefield to hide somewhere.

OOC: Hey! This seems cool, I've played DTG games before so I am familiar with the concept but it seems there are a few things added here, like theatres and stuff.

Click to shrink...

Hello, thank you for being here.
You charge a bit, preparing for your next action... What will it be?

Oh hey Gol, welcome to the game! You're from Defeat The Godmodder/the Spacebattles games, right?
Assuming that's the case quick bit of info: This game is based on the older DTGames, which is only pertinent in that "spending actions to charge" isn't really a thing here. Charge goes up passively, and goes down when you burn it on something or take damage when vulnerable.
Hope this helps, great to have you with us! If you don't already have it, PM someone in the thread (ideally DCCCV) to get a link to the DTG and DtG: DtG discords, if you want. /ooc

---

Kslerà once again slips between the subtle folds in voidic space, the reversed sky giving way from their former location to their new one: the Inside of Nikolai. It begins expelling, from its probusci, the savory bile used to pre-digest a meal. Unholy, salty Brine floods Nikolai from the inside, deliciously damaging their various internal organs.

Click to shrink...

The brunt of your attempted predigestion of Nikolai gets blocked by Leraje. At the same time, that saltwater does a number on his armor. One of the problems with being the Iron Prince, I suppose. -5 Armor to Nikolai! 3 damage to Leraje!

You are here and thus cannot escape me. Perish, BUILDER·BADAM.

As in...perishable food or something. Expire! but like, pass your best-by date.

(Also I shoot them with the headsplody red-white art Mottom-style. pichuun! I to do this with sign language but it's like shadow puppets without the shadows I can just arm it and reality gets the memo.)

(Of course, this goes right into the bodyguard...and worms into the energy supply! It's filled with the element of the person, so we can use a sympathetic chainthrough to storytell our way to the main body and attack that!)

Perishability and fuel destabilization may or may not work that way, but as the end of the world comes the endings hang heavy. If there was a promise for all this to be eaten up by the ravages of time, entropy's had it up to here with my BS and it's got a BUILDER·BADAM right there to take it out on.

Click to shrink...

You make BADAM's energy expire. Within the Engietech Drone, BADAM's golden energy curdles, filling the machine with BADAMcheese. 50,000/10 Critical Damage to the Engietech Drone and BADAM, bypassing Twilight Providence!

ACTION: 1/2/3: Charge

"Yeehaw."

ENTITY ORDERS:

The Bounty Hunters will Target Nikolai, in order to hit Labolas.

Charge 4/25

Click to shrink...

Entities Ordered! You prepare your next action...
((Charge accumulates passively here, it doesnt increase through actions.))

Present DefJOE (Past) JOE(Past)

• [1x] Oh it eats me back now does it? It thinks it GETS to eat something as good as Me? As I've established, my energy has a better power level per unit input because I am amazing and badam is not (Badam is totally lame this is my callout attack). To explain it in a different metaphorical way, think of it like this: If BADAMs energy is a Pineapple, I am a Cherenkov bomb(Cherenkov radiation is blue. in water.). I outclass him in sophistication, fundamental importance, and raw power.
  Yes, my ego is large enough to make this claim when faced with a guy who gambled, in the early days of the world, about the ultimate fate of the world.
  That is just another point in my favor. Large Egos power society, and that's a Fact™.
  But I bet that's not convincing, right? You don't know how awesome I am. Well, here's another point in my favor.
  I can control BADAM Energy!
  I am, after all, a Descended! I have performed a nonzero quantity of violence that is to some degree directed at BADAM! That means that I have his powers, at somewhere between 20% and 3.3%. That's a big range of possibilities but it has to be in them because somewhere between five and thirty descended is enough to fight off a Godmodder using the copied powers.
  Since BADAM is probably not actively controlling this energy(or at least has less direct access and so lower precision), I can simply use my copied BADAM Energy Control to command his "pineapples" to metaphorically shrivel up into nuggets of nutrition with no spikes or harmfulness at the frontier between my dronecontents-'territory' and his, scoop up the nuggets, and expand the frontier. (Even if he was actively fighting me and a descended(is he?), he wouldn't be able to replicate the ability in reverse because my ability to control my energy is 'the ability to control self-aspected energy', not 'the ability to control JOE energy',whereas Badams energy-control is copyable because I was informed it was copyable by god Himself.)
  
  [2x]But this is actually Horribly irrelevant. Except it isn't! I immediately check out of the drone after subsuming a good chunk of its Tetris energy for my use, leaving BADAMs non-subverted energy to sputter in confusion. What is Tetris energy good for? Well, God himself, who I am of course on good speaking terms with because I am just that good, informs me that Tetris is the way to Omniscience, knowing things, and unlocking information about things. And it's also a coding language but everyone else is a scrub who ignores that including BADAM, probably. Now unfortunately this means I have nobody to learn Tetris from but I still have two codes I Can input even if they won't help.
  ...
  I'll save one of them for Past!Me.
  And the other is completely useless sooooooooo
  Anyway I'm not a scrub but it's very non-scrubby to notice that sometimes, the scrubs path is actually the right path. So I use the Tetris power I stole (and the Tetris Power I can conjure using the connection I have to BADAM from sort of fighting him) to find out where THOR, KVASIR, SURTUR, NJORD and LOKI were or currently-will-be at any point in the past, present, or future. While I'm at it, I have these words for Adam.
  I assume I can't just ask Adam questions with non-yes-no answers. What follows is a series of yes-no statements which aim to narrow down when and where.
  There is no need to Actually Read or pay attention to any of these. It is probably better to simply accept that, with this series of statements, assuming that Adam has a reason to believe any of them were anywhere within several thousand universes of here (and I mean the big, sciency huge observable universe sorts), at any point in the last 300 years, I will not only know where he thinks they were down to 12 Centimeters (if he can get that precise), I will know what time it was down to the hour (third-of-an-hour if <100 years ago, 2 minutes if <10 years ago, etc.), and which one, for all five if he knows all five. You can trust my honor and also my oddly precise descriptions of what I would know.
  (((On a meta level, don't bother reading this. It really doesn't matter much. It was an interesting challenge though.)))
  
  Spoiler

  -Snipped. This was several thousand words long and unfortunately i don't have the mental wellbeing to read that right now-
  The important thing is I now know where-when he thinks I should look, which should make my tetramino-based search... moderately more efficient!*
  Once I find a point-in-time-and-space where each of these Power peeps are- huh, deja vu while writing that, weird, something about subverting powers and headology-as-it-were- I send them a personalized attack! THOR receives a variant of me with red skin and martial arts who will try (and probably fail honestly) to suplex him, and then self-destruct. KVASIR gets a bolt of every element (my kind, not eidokinetic) delivered directly into his left thumb(the bolt is sentient, me, and will self-destruct), SURTUR gets a cake topped with the words 'Adrian Celstus'- it's a hunch, also the cake is sentient me and self-destructs-, NJORD gets a fjord opened on the ground beneath him(the fjord is of course me and will disappear), and LOKI gets attacked by 30 low-key roller-disco enthusiasts (all of which are altmes and then self-destruct).
  These attacks occur 'conceptually'(with otherwise-obvious physical ramifications spread out over a few hours) and/or slide up or down their personal timestreams until it won't cause a paradox or whatever, if necessary. In this way, I have as much of a claim to a Descended Copy of their powers as I have to a copy of BADAMs and the green-Ish dracomans.
  I might not know exactly what I'm up to in the past...
  (that's a lie I obviously do, or I'd be asking for directions from-Adam to the green one too)
  ...but I know I could use the help. I could always use help. help makes things easier. Even if I was going to succeed anyway, help will save time. This is also short-sightedly self-serving too because new cool powers yo!
  
  *Assuming that Tetraminos are treated as a black box and not, in fact, the solution of P=NP. Otherwise, it's impossible to make the Tetramino-based search, specifically, any more efficient. P!=NP claims that there are problems where it is easier to verify a specific proposed solution than to find the solution yourself; if P=NP, it takes just as long to solve the problem as to check a solution, and so the amount of time it takes to find the various targets is equal to, and not greater than, the time to send them their attacks(since otherwise it would take longer to solve the problem, via repeated trials, than to check a solution, via a single trial.
• Meanwhile, in the past!
  [0x] Scan the greater foe.
  [0x] and scan the lesser 9 too.
  [0x] Oh! My past self has a question! "That's disconcerting... Future me, Who's narrating... this dragon, since it's not srovy or me?" "Oh, that's easy! It's... Integer!" "the, concept of whole numbers, is narrating?" "No, Integer is his curse! He's also called Arbiter or Adrasta! The last one is his name. You don't know him." "...I... see. Where is he?" "In the future! we're vaguely connected by his narrating powers so he's still narrating my environs." There! that definitely answered ALL the questions! It's a good thing 50% of 0 is zero.
  [1x] Tetraminos! I have that powerset! yes! It occurs to me that, considering the giant Red Dragon which I have to fight, I might die! I would very like Not Die, but Die is probably unavoidable, which is why I will instead use Tetraminos to make sure I will not Dead. Subtle distinction, Dieing is the process and Death is the endstate and the endstate is the real problem. when you are Dead it is harder to do things unless you become Not-Dead or Undead. This is why I clap my hands (silently. The Tetramino-energy flame dampens the noise by not being any state of matter and it doesn't conduct through my flesh so good. not that it matters; this isn't an attack and so 50% Sound Damage is 0 Sound Damage.), using Tetraminos to input the legendary Konami Code...
  
  or, in full, UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT A B START. I also input it through head jerks for good measure, like I'm in FEZ. Since I'm using Tetraminos for this code, the result should differ from standard references- This isn't just a reference, this is a cheat code hammered into the informational underpinnings of reality.
  A cheat code which grants 30 extra Lives. Which would be visible above but there comes a point where it is simply not worth the additional delays alright? alright.
  I then soundlessly 'yell' at past me (with magic):
  "You can use this code thing too! the yellow guy did his whatever and that was an insult to the entire universe which is good enough! It's a Good Idea!"
  ...yeah looks like he's doing it. Nowhere near as Stylish as I did, though! It's surprising how much I've grown as a person!
  [1x] okay okay so there's more than just this big red guy to fight now he summoned endermen. Wait, endermen? slender black men? men which are 50% taller than a normal person?
  Well I know Exactly how you go about killing Endermen! I simply build a flat platform to stand on and a flat ceiling exactly two meters above it! The platform and ceiling are made of forcefields, because Endermen can't pick up Barrier Blocks! I think. One second.... yeah, Endermen can't pick up barrier blocks! Now these endermen can't attack anyone who stays between these two barriers, because they cannot enter this area because it is too short! and given how endermen behave (and that these are lesser endermen and therefore Not Smart), the inverse will not be true.
  ...
  Oh and I make like 30 copies of these forcefields all over and make them turn off on the same conditions as the teleportation thing(and turn on when the conditions aren't met), so the big red boi won't destroy and nullify them.
  [1x + 4 CP] But I can't spend All my time managing survival! I mean, I can. I do have allies. It's maybe even the right thing to do. But it's also lame! I am the brave captain of the ship that is this battle and I shall break new ground, find new lands, and do increasingly inadvisable things! I make a finger-gun sort of pose and begin firing concentrated, high-speed bullets of Viridescent energy into Big Red's skin. I aim for the legs and wings, specifically. Extremities, less likely to be defended, more important for a battle since I know it can shrug off whatever I target, less predictable (in the sense that there are more of them). I'm very conservative with the number of bullets I fire, though. I got this power From big red, which means he might be able to control it- heck, he might use it for blood, which is another reason I aim for the extremities. At the angles I choose, the bullets will rip through his flesh and out the other side in a fraction of a second, whether they run into more of the same or not.
  Once the bullets are through, I use the iron grip of energetic control I didn't slacken for a second to make them curve around and collect inside a very secure jar I pull out of my past selfs forgotten extradimensional bag on another continent. Don't worry, he has loads of spares and it's not like he's using them anyway. Now, why do I collect them inside this jar? because the Viridescent represents the Alkahest, which means Alchemy, yo! Now that I've got small bits of dissolved Essence Of Foe-very small bits, remember how few bullets I fired and they weren't big ones, just well-placed- I use a bit more Viridescent to dissolve twice as much of Me, regenerate the harm- this is where the CP expenditure comes in!- and then drop that into the Jar too. I then perform the standard alchemistrical procedure of recrystallising the contents by evaporating the solvent, leaving me with a jar full of material which likes me twice as much as it likes big red and has capabilities from us both.
  If you need a TL;DR, I use Viridescent to 1) hurt the dragon in a way that will hopefully impede its attacks and 2) make a thing(possibly an entity, possibly a weapon, I dunno) out of a mix of red dragon-stuff and Me-stuff using the properties of Viridescent. There is a side-hope that 3) the dragon roars in pain and so takes 50% more damage, but it's not mentioned directly because it would've disrupted the flow.
  
  [TOKEN] aaand another thing! Because this is a situation to expend what resources I have to spare. Now, not long ago, a planet flew by called Xanadu. On the standard path of time, this world would follow in its orbit- A part of Xanadu, after a fashion. So what can I do with this knowledge? Well, what do I know about Xanadu?
  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
  A stately pleasure-dome decree:
  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
  Through caverns measureless to man
  Down to a sunless sea.
  So twice five miles of fertile ground
  With walls and towers were girdled round;
  And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
  And here were forests ancient as the hills,
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
  I don't see a Kubla Khan about, but that makes sense. After all, Xanadu has only just arisen. It takes time to rise to power.
  But before Kubla Khan is Alph, the sacred river, and the caverns through which it runs; the sea to which it empties; and the ancient forests it feeds.
  Say, would you look at that? There just so happens to be a RED SEA here, abandoned by the sun. Which means, of course, that this land is the caverns measureless to man. And that makes sense, doesn't it? The hardest land to fathom is a living world, and the hardest to measure one that shifts. Measure the whole planet and a new cavern will appear- and an old vanish- by the morn, so long as you are a mere man, but not I.
  The caverns are here, the sea is here, Xanadu is... conceptually here. What remains? The forests and the river. The forests are in the Templar Kingdom proper, for there is an ancient wooded area which grows grand trees which leach Vintage out of the ground (and so many of them are harvested by the Templars workers for the Vintage they hold). What remains? Alph, the sacred river. That is not already here; The templar lands lie in a desert.
  So that flaw must be mended. Via my token of power, I create Alph, the sacred river. It winds between the dunes, and about the sky, because it is beyond such mortal things and needs no riverbed. It winds through the battlefield, resplendent and sparkling. And then it winds into the Sunless Sea.
  
  ...Mechanically, I can't find the conversion from Charge to Stats in the original post for some reason, so I can't give this stats. It might be a Terrain effect, or a regenerating entity? probably with 'water' which (being sacred) can be used for healing/buffing(and maybe automatically dampens attacks with contravene it?), and with leftover water automatically pouring onto (and hurting) the RED DRAGON. If possible, the river theoretically Starts on Xanadu or further yet, so it shouldn't be completely killable from not!Xanadu, unless BADAM has a problem with Xanadu being Xanadu'd.
  If I already have the relevant Tenet power when I make this Token expenditure, then Alph, the sacred river, is filled with and made of Quintessence, the Tenet of KVASIR. It's not Just because I'm Cyan, it's also because it fits more to Alph. But it's also because I'm Cyan.
• [Null] {{{Scan both}}}
  [Zeroth Action] So it has minions, huh? Endermen, according to the narration. ...Who narrated that if it wasn't you? How should I know? Ask your past self, he doesn't look surprised. Alright. He turns to look at you before you start talking. "That's disconcerting... Future me, Who's narrating... this dragon, since it's not srovy or me?"
  "Oh, that's easy! It's... Integer!" he explains, pointing at nowhere.
  "the, concept of whole numbers, is narrating?"
  "No, Integer is his curse! He's also called Arbiter or Adrasta! The last one is his name. You don't know him." and I also don't know him.
  "...I... see. Where is he?"
  "In the future! we're vaguely connected by his narrating powers so he's still narrating my environs." and then he stops paying attention to you.
  [Zeroth Action Two] Bah, fine. I guess I should fight these things. I summon my release blade, like, inside of my throat- inside of your throat. That sounds like pain. well, sword-swallowers... exist. I then release the energy in it. We didn't ever establish how releasing Time Energy works, did we? I dunnnnno man, probably not. So I'm going to conveniently declare that since Time Energy doesn't make explosions normally, it will instead do a time acceleration. I resummon the blade in my hand so I don't die from internal bleeding, and then run over to those endermen and stab all of their legs so they won't be able to walk anymore, and will bleed out eventually, then I run back away from them before the time acceleration wears off. I make sure to run quietly, so with any luck the sound backlash will hit the Endermen when they start screaming creepily.
  Oh, uh, Adrasta, you misnarrated my Release Blade; I charged it with Time, not Blood. Hence my releasing Time, just now, emptying the blade.
  [First Action] your future self made some kind of line of black squares with yellow bits while you were doing that, and he has something to say. Silently. "You can use this code thing too! the yellow guy did his whatever and that was an insult to the entire universe which is good enough! It's a Good Idea!" ...Alright, I guess? what is this yellow stuff, it doesn't look like Electric Energy or Energy Energy... Just ask him. He's ignoring me again, so I can't. Well, he did say it was a... 'code thing'... whatever, I try to make that line of blackish-yellow squares... thing... using whatever it is. And you succeed! obviously!
  [Second Action + 2 Charges] Now that the time energy is out of my release blade, and my Blood energy isn't being used, I charge it with blood like Adrasta thought I did the first time. Were you waiting to do this? Well... yes, sort of. I has plan. Also, since I haven't been hurt by anything, I use some of my Life energy to produce more Blood Energy. Is that a thing? Well, Blood Elementalism makes Life Energy regenerate faster... so... You know what it might not be a thing but Life Energy sacrifice was definitely... something. Several thousand years ago. It's probably possible to something with it.
  [Third Action] While I'm pouring my Blood Energy into my Release Blade, I put on the Glyph Chestplate. Oh- Adrasta's new and probably doesn't know what that is, do they? It's not like I remember what it is either. Really?-the Glyph Chestplate is one of the like eight or so Heirlooms, remember? No. There were the Order Boots, the Glyph Chestplate, the Void Helmet, the, uh, Snake Pants, and four more that I don't remember right now. Whatever. Wait, I remember one of the other ones, there was a chestplate made of floating stone bits. I really don't care. It's not like they mattered. ...Fair. But might as well use them now, right? anyway explanation! So the Heirlooms are 8 or so magical items which the non-elementalist humans in the Templar Kingdom had, collectively. Each of them had like... a noble family? It was sorta implied that the heirlooms were relevant enough to be templar level but they weren't really scaled accordingly. Srovy and I had obtained, if memory serves, the Order Boots and Glyph Chestplate. The Order Boots were white boots with a few seconds of absolute shielding with a long cooldown. the Glyph Chestplate, on the other hand, allows for the creations of various glyphs with any number of effects at will, including force-projection, anti-aging, healing, teleportation, and so on; it effectively gives you access to the Glyph Element, in the form of several metallic bands which you put on and then they form force connections like an actual chestplate but transparent and with runes all over them. We don't have the rest, I think, but the Void Helmet fires bolts of void from a gem on the same cooldown-length as the Order Boots, the chestplate just lets you make barriers out of rocks and is a chestplate, and the... I'm not sure they were actually called snake pants but they were made of snakes and their ability was to make snakes and tendrils come out of the ground and grab things. Oh, it's also implied that the Heirlooms are indestructible? not in the sense of this is an important ability they have but in the sense that destroying them is never implied as even possible.
  Anyway, the Important part is that I use the Glyph Chestplate to create glyphs on the sword-hooks I lobbed at the dragon, making them eat into it more. Srovy, you should put on the Order Boots in case it attacks you, future-me implied you might not respawn.
  {{{I imagine in the abstract that in this scenario, the reasonable action for srovy is to hang back, maybe charging his release blade, and maybe use astral elementalism to support the battlers somehow. It's difficult to predict, because the closest 'real' scenario has Srovy playing the role of the Dragon and leaves anything else Srovy-the-character does implied. which sorta matches to 'hang back, charge and support'? But I'm not sure such actions are precisely his style. maybe they get justified via an implied period of nagging him to not perform the potentially life-risking action of fighting near the dragon.
  The Templars seem like endurance battlers to me so- Given that the FOE is wounded and losing health already, from the bone swords- I infer that they would try to maintain the current state of the battle, fighting defensively with a greater focus on surviving, harrying, and outlasting than hurting directly. But if it seems the FOE can summon more endermen freely(which it kinda does), then killing the endermen or rendering them non-threats are a priority for any attempt to outlast.
  It's also possible the Templars would not trust an Elementalist's Bone Swords to continue to function / to kill a dragon, in which case they would likely attempt to inflict a similar DoT effect themselves. It might be an effect on one of their swords, or something more specialised- it would be a standard-practice enchantment if dragons were remotely common, but since this is the only dragon for thousands of years it might be something only the Chaplain is equipped with}}}

Click to shrink...

You critically scoop out 60,000 Energy worth of BADAMcheese out of the Engietech Drone.
Then, you ask Adam if he knows of the locations of the other Gamblers.

Adam has any knowledge on the locations of THOR, KVASIR, SURTUR, NJORD or LOKI at any point in the past or present.

Well, it seems he knows nothing about them.

You then eat the BADAMcheese. A miniature Cheese-Badam climbs out of your mouth.

"AHAHAHAHAHA! IF YOU HAD ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING, I'D SAY YOU GOT GUTS, KID! BUT YOU DON'T. NONE AT ALL! BUT TELL YOU WHAT, I'LL GIVE YOU THE LOCATIONS OF THE OTHER GAMBLERS RIGHT NOW: THEY'RE NOT HERE! IN THIS TIMELINE, IT'S JUST ME, JORMUNGANDR AND ODIN!"

ЫОУ ЦАНТ УСЕ ТХЕ ОТХЕР ТЕНЕТС БЕЦАУСЕ ТХЕЫ ДОНТ ЕХИСТ ХЕРЕ·

Your scan comes through for the Lesser Endermen.

[???] Lesser Endermen. 40,000/40,000 Hp. Teleports: 4/4.
ACTION Attack (3/Round):
ZA HANDO: 10,000 Physical damage. Consume 1 Teleport to make it Oblivion Damage to target MHP instead.
Grab: Remove something from the target Entity to take for yourself, whether it be an artifact, armor, etc.
Frag: 20,000+ Damage, Type based on item grabbed, ignores AC and consumes grabbed item. Can do more depending on what item is grabbed. Consumes 1 Teleport.
End: Restores 2 Teleports.
PASSIVE(Teleports) An Enderman can consume Teleports to automatically avoid an attack. 1 Charge of Teleport can be removed as a Free Action by observing the Enderman, though that will make the observed Enderman target you.

As for BRINE himself, he remains inscrutable. The entry earlier's all you're getting out of him.

Meanwhile in the Past, you input the Konami Code. Energy flows into your body, as three triangles affix themselves to your Nimbus.
+30 Charge. You are now Vulnerable.
Next, you create 30 Barrier Safezones to hedge out the Lesser Endermen. They should be able to hold 1 person each to protect them from one Enderman attack each round.
You then manipulate the Viridescent to shoot the Red Dragon, dissolving off 12 Hp. As you use the Viridescent on yourself, it tears 24 Charge off of you, which goes into the jar along with what you took from the Red Dragon. Together, these two essences combine into...Magic. Elemental Magic.
Finally, you summon the River Alph upon the Red Dragon, bringing the roar of thousands of tons of water crashing down on him. This applies an increased DoT on him.

Your Past Self uses the Konami Code too, gaining 30 Charge and Vulnerability as well. They attempt to stab out the legs of all the Lesser Endermen, but they simply teleport away. He then charges his Release Blade with actual Blood Energy this time, and also puts on the Glyph Chestplate, using it to intensify the Red Dragon's Bone Sword DoT.

ALAN: This is good stuff, Adam. Thanks.

ALAN: You are Loki.
ALAN: The aid you are providing us is mistletoe-ish.
ALAN: Acting on information provided to us by you is inherently effective against Badam regardless of that information's nature.
ALAN: Badam has a weakness which has to do with the mythology surrounding Baldr.
ALAN: You think the previous statement is a plausible angle of attack but you don't actually know.

ALAN: ##### is Loki.
ALAN: ##### is Jormungandr.
ALAN: ##### speaks in green in the non-gold timeline.
ALAN: You know who all the AESIR are.
ALAN: You know who some of the AESIR are, but not all of them.

ALAN: You knew the part of you which is now part of Badam had the potential to become part of Badam because of something about that part of you.
ALAN: You knew Badam had the potential to subsume some or all of you.
ALAN: You made a deal with Badam at some point in the past.
ALAN: Badam's three demons are each composed of part of you and part of Badam.
ALAN: The parts of Badam which comprise each demon add up to the whole of Badam.
ALAN: The parts of you which comprise each demon add up to the whole of you.
ALAN: The parts of you which comprise each demon add up to the part of you which is part of Badam.
ALAN: (Sorry for the confusing phrasing)
ALAN: Splitting the other two demons in half is a strategy you recommend.
ALAN: Attempting to similarly split Badam is a possible victory condition for this fight.
ALAN: This is a victory condition you consider plausible for us to achieve relative to other potential victory conditions.
ALAN: This is a victory condition you consider acceptable relative to other potential victory conditions.
ALAN: This would result in the part of you which was split off from you returning to you.
ALAN: The part of BADAM which isn't you is BALDR.
ALAN: (And the part of BADAM which is you is not.)

ALAN: You know who Alethea killed or incapacitated that would otherwise have brought about this timeline.
ALAN: You don't know, but you have a good guess.
ALAN: It was one of the other AESIR.

Action 1: Alan slams his palm into the Engietech Drone, setting it vibrating at the same frequency as Alan's own aura, detuning it from BADAM and attuning it to Order. Also, he just plain sends it flying. That should get it out of the way for long enough to get some attacks in.

Action 2: Alan polarizes Badam's twilight, enabling attacks to pass through his SHP freely so long as they only vibrate along the vertical axis. Then he swings his staff down and hits Badam on the head.

Action 3: Alan follows it up with a sharp reversal, swinging the other end of his staff up and hitting Badam in the crotch. The blow strikes with enough force to launch Badam high into the air. The moment he lines up with a gap in the skyline, there is a sound effect, and several floors are deleted from the buildings on either side of Badam, along with Badam himself. For the first time since Tetris's debut, someone has won a game of skyline tetris.

Click to shrink...

Confirmed Results:
You think the previous statement is a plausible angle of attack but you don't actually know.(BADAM has a weakness which has to do with the mythology surrounding Baldr.)

BRINE is JORMUNGANDR.
BRINE speaks in green in the non-gold timeline.
You know who some of the AESIR are, but not all of them.

You knew the part of you which is now part of Badam had the potential to become part of Badam because of something about that part of you.
You made a deal with BADAM at some point in the past.
The parts of BADAM which comprise each demon add up to the whole of BADAM.
The part of BADAM which isn't you is BALDR.
You don't know, but you have a good guess. (You know who Alethea killed or incapacitated that would otherwise have brought about this timeline.)

Your palm-attack disrupts BADAM out of the Engietech Drone, filling it up with 40,000 Order-Energy! You then Polarize BADAM's Twilight so that he's vulnerable to vertical attacks! As you hit and align him into the Skyline, he takes 16 Damage! He doesn't get destroyed, though. He's too strong for that.

John smiles a bit too much as he pulls a scabbard (hand protection instrument) out of his guitar case and attaches it to one of his thirty-three (that's an estimate) studded leather belts. He slides the "Time" Sword into it with a soft whistle, and the cross guard clinks softly against the mouth of the sleeve. "Finally," he breathes, relieved. "I actually got to pull something out of my gimmick case this turn. Been WAY too long since I used it."

Momentarily satisfied, John looks at what his actions have wrought, standing tall above Xanadu on his speaker platform. Immediately, his joy is shattered. "REALLY!" he complains. "There are FOUR ADAMS on the field, and not ONE of them is doing their job! Five if you count Red voice, wherever he is. Still isn't answering my calls, by the by. I guess he got bored after I had his cops raid a fourth Pizza Hut over a suspected TIME BOMB threat. And then ordered him a prank pizza from the exact stores he raided." For a brief pause, John looks off into the distant void, reminiscing at how clever that was. If he had actually done it, that is. The Time Cops would probably claim that never happened, but HE HAS FREE WILL JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

Regardless, as he stares longingly out toward the dark void, he notices a distinct green -er, red -eh, depends on when you're looking- streak crashing around, slamming into something... voidy(?). John can't tell. But whatever it is, it's ruining his view. John takes out a pair of golden Opera Glasses (viewing instruments) and peers deeply through their outrageously tiny lenses. As his vision focuses, John gasps. It's Smirk-y face! Man, it's been awhile since John recognized Smirk-y face. Not since... Smirk tried to disintegrate a space ship with his pet cat...? Yeah, that was it. Definitely. Good times.

But as he continues to look, his Smart! Opera Glasses (Telecommunications Instrument) starts scrolling the EOTB. The figures Smirk-y is fighting become more clear, dark as they may be. And one of them makes John gasp. AGAIN! There are two hands! Woah! And one of them is attuned to... the Earth?

"ADAM!" John shouts without thinking. "WHY AREN'T YOU DOING YOUR JOB!? The Earth is that-a-way!" he exclaims with excessive pointing. "Shouldn't one of you be KING of that thing!?" John shakes his head, disgusted at the lack of Adam-enthusiasm present in the five Adams on the field. But then, as his disapproving frown begins to deepen, it suddenly flips. John grins wildly at the Hand So Below. He draws his "Time" sword, pointing its gleaming letters at the deep void, and declares, "If you guys aren't going to be Adam, I guess I'LL BE THE KING OF EARTH!"

((TL;DR 0: John realizes Adam isn't doing his job and decides to become King of Earth. No actions yet.))

Action 1: John sheaths his "Time" sword. "But first..." he amends. John kicks his guitar case on its sides, and a pile of bricks (Children's Toy Instrument) falls from the universe of clutter within. The bricks topple downward, landing on top of the Engietech drone. As they pound into the robot, the bricks land perfectly in the shape of a house. And as quickly as the bricks fall, John is down at the scene, quick drying cement (Cartoon Instrument) and a trowel (Smoothing Instrument). In a flash of gray, John slaps down the cement between the layers of bricks, smoothing each layer before the next brick of the structure can land.

In mere moments, John proves himself a Mason, building a stunning mansion around the Engietech drone. There's just one problem. It doesn't have doors. Or windows. This isn't a problem for John, of course. His parents kicked him out of the house forever ago. He lives in an RV. But for the Drone, things are a bit more-

The house explodes in a shower of broken concrete chunks. Bricks go flying everywhere. The patio is ruined. And the flying buttresses! They're... butting! -Wait, no -er, maybe. Sure. Let's go with that. And the Engietech Drone is unfortunately buried in the explosion.

John looks at the pile of rubble, confused. He thought he built everything right. Laid the foundation. Smoothed the concrete. Used the quick drying- Yeah. Quick drying cement. John checked the label. Not the quick exploding cement. That's a different pocket. The quick drying is the third chamber on the left. The exploding is fourth on the right. John didn't screw that u-

"Oh," John mutters, his face blank. "That's what went wrong. I put down all the nails last turn. The nails were supposed to be the last thing, not the first... Whoops." John shrugs. He bought his Masonry license online anyways. He's as certified as a surgeon.

((TL;DR 1: John tries (and fails) to be a Mason, blowing up a house on top of the Engietech Drone.))

Bonus Action: Well, now that that's done, John just has to get to "Terra Nox." Sounds like a bad fart, really, but if the universe says so...

John walks over to the edge of Xanadu and leans out. He is immediately met with flashing red signs that read: "Warning: Do Not Cross", "Beware of Dogs", "Keep All Body Parts Inside the Vehicle While the Ride is in Motion", "You Shall Not Pass!", "You Cannot Pass!", "One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor", "[INSERT LoTR REFERENCE HERE]", "Legit Dude, Do Me a Solid and Don't Leave", "I Mean It", "The Cake is a Lie", and "FREE ICE CREAM IF YOU SURVIVE TEN SEC-". Oddly enough, whoever made that last sign didn't have the time to finish. Strange.

"Man," John mutters to himself, "how did Smirk-y boy miss all these warning signs? And, more importantly, how haven't I broken them yet?" John casually slips under the yellow police tape and steps off into the void, his speaker platform flying beneath his feet as he sails out into the void.

((TL;DR 1.1: Slip over to the "Terra Nox" Theatre.))

Actions 2 & 3: Within moments, John arrives at "Terra Nox." John farts. It just felt right.

On his platform, John glides over to @Ender_Smirk, who's probably huffing and puffing after whatever it was he did last turn. John reaches over Smirk's shoulder pats him on the back. "Hey buddy! Long time no see! How's it been? Summoning more God-like beings to try to kill you, I see. Nice, nice. I'm John, by the way. Don't know if I ever properly introduced myself." John offers to shake Smirk's hand. If Smirk tries to shake it, John pulls his hand back and calls, "PSYCHE!" Regardless, John keeps talking. "Well, I'm here- not to help you- but to steal more useless crap. I don't know. It's this compulsion I've got. Can't help it. See, I've got this sword-" John pulls out his "Time" Sword and swings it around haphazardly, almost chopping off Smirk's thumb. Almost. "-I took it from... an Adam. And now I'm here to steal his job. King of Earth! Sounds cool. Means I get to lounge around on a throne all day, right? Something like that." John waves the thought away, clearly not caring what it means to be King. "So I'm gonna go be more distracting than you. I'll hand it to you, though, this is quite the mess. You're lucky to have my EXPERTISE."

John floats away from Smirk. He hops off his speaker platform and glides around in the void, spinning like a drunk astronaut as he gets his bearings. After flapping his arms like a bird and doggy paddling through space for a bit, John gets close enough to the Hand So Below to begin.

"LOOK OVER THERE!" he shouts to the big rocky hand. "A BUTTEFLY!" The hand is immediately confused. Firstly, it has no eyes. Problem. Secondly, this is the void. There's no-

John swings a tiny little butterfly (Intimidation Instrument) at the Hand As Below, breaking its kneecaps... which it also doesn't have...

As the Hand As Below is caught paralyzed trying to figure out what John just did, John actually starts his attack, kicking his tall speaker, which begins blaring the round's tune.

The speaker chimes to the ethereal beat as John draws his sword, his head nodding with every scratch of the song. The melody quickly breaks into a storm of ruckus, and John raises the "Time" sword to point at the Hand So Below. He looks up at the hand, a sickening smile on his face. With a silly wave, John begins to sing,

"Hey, I'm feeling tired.
"My time is gone today."

Right on cue, John flings the "Time" Sword forward. Its shining gray steel glitters in the void, cutting a line through space at it pierces the Hand So Below. Light shatters from the back of the hand as the sword emerges on the other side, drifting softly as the Hand So Below rears. Its fingers twist through the air as it seems to screech in pain.

Meanwhile, John points to Smirk and sings,

"You flirt with suicide.
"Sometimes that's okay.
"Do what other's say," he mentions, pointing at the official "itinerary" in his hand.
"I'm here standing hollow." John's AG Red flashes in his eyes, before turning gray.
"Falling away from me.
"Falling away from me."

The "Time" Sword continues to drift through the void, growing ever further from John. As it falls, the sword pulls against the Hand So Below, an invisible tether dragging it down away from John, who continues,

"Day is here fading." The void echoes with the phrase.
"That's when I'm insane." John's eyes flash red again.
"I flirt with suicide.
"Sometimes kill the pain." John's eyes flash for a third time, and AG light violently erupts from them, puncturing the Hand So Below and reflecting within the "Time" Sword's blade.
"I can't always say,
"'It's gonna be better tomorrow.'" On "tomorrow," the "Time" Blade reacts, glowing brighter as it continues to spin.
"Falling away from me.
"Falling away from me."

The speaker platform roars into the void as John raises his fist, a spiked knuckle duster (cleaning instrument) adorning his fingers. John leaps forward in midair, a halo of red light bursting from his feet as he sings,

"Beating me down!" he shouts, his fist bashing against the Hand So Below.
"Beating me, beating me
"down, down!" He assaults the shadowy hand, his knuckles exploding with red light as he pushes the Hand back.
"Into the gound." Suddenly, the Hand So Below crashes into something: a rock. That rolled. It shatters into a field of shrapnel behind it as the hand continues to fall.
"Screaming some sound!
"Beating me, beating me
"down, down!" John continues, unrelenting in his strikes.
"Into the ground."

The speaker begins to chime once more as John steps back from the Hand So Below. He slips his knuckle duster into his pocket as he takes a deep breath. His eyes seem to peer past the Hand So Below, seeing not it, but the "Time" Sword floating behind it. He almost whispers,

"Falling away from me."
"It's spinning round and round." The blade twirls through the air.
"Falling away from me."
"It's lost and can't be found." The red light dims in the blade.
"Falling away from me."
"It's spinning round and round." The light strengthens as it continues to spin.
"Falling away from me.
"Throw it down."

As John makes the last deep call, the "Time" Sword plunges downward, still dragging the Hand So Below with it. Between the two, a red vine softly glows. And John still sings,

"Beeting me down!" In his hands, he hold a pile of beets (Nutritional Instruments), fresh plucked from his guitar case.
"Beeting me, beeting me
"down, down!" He launches a barrage of beets at the Hand So Below, their brown tips creating more puncture wounds in the giant hand.
"Into the ground." The Hand So Below crashes into a nicely tilled field, absolutely ruining it.
"Screaming some sound!" As he cries, the beets seem to grown beneath the Hand So Below's skin.
"Beeting me, beeting me
"down, down!" The red stems' color drain into the body of beets.
"Into the ground." The color is injected deeper into the Hand So Below, mixing with his shadows through its earthy attunement.

The speaker taps lightly as John drops the remaining beets from his hands. He stares once more at the "Time" Sword as he chants,

"Twiiiistiiiing meeeeee." John and the "Time" Sword spin in unison.
"They woooon't go away." The beets dig further into the Hand So Below.
"So I pray." John floats on his knees, his hands flat against each other.
"Go awaaaaay!" With the final drawl, red soundwaves spread from John's lips, pushing the Hand So Below even further.

In the resulting chimes, John continues to whisper,

"Life's falling away from me.
"It's falling away from me.
"Life's falling away from me."

John falls silent for a moment, before screaming, "ADAM!" The speaker begins to roar again, scratching against the silent void. But John is "lost and can't be found". Where he stood, the "Time" Sword now float, gleaming brightly as it twists through the void. The Hand So Below is immediately confused. It doesn't have eyes to see- er, "Where is John?" it asks its non-sentient self- er. It's just confused. Just confused.

John floats behind it, right where the "Time" Sword was, the red vines clasped firmly in his hand. The speaker begins to sing for him as he yanks back on the vine, pulling the massive hand toward him. He catches the hand in a finger-lock, choking its pointer finger with his empty arm. He moves his mouth close to the hand and whispers, "Life's falling away from me." He yanks once more against the vine, and the "Time" Sword hurtles toward them. The vines coil backward through the bleeding hole in the Hand So Below that John had repeatedly pierced, and their spines slash against the hand as they recede into John's sleeve. Meanwhile, the sword cuts a red trail against the void, gleaming brightly from the vantage of Xanadu. For a moment, John's words echo in the Hand So Below's mind. Then, like a comet, the "Time" Sword's tip crashes through the Hand So Below. Its palm shatters in the impact, screaming red through empty void.

But the blade does not stop. It stabs through John's chest, protruding through his back as he keeps his hold on the Hand. John gasps at the impact. Then, he screams. The song ends, "Beating me, beating me down, down, into the ground." As the speaker cries those final words, John releases his grip, falling backward into the black abyss, dead.

...

"PSYCHE!" John suddenly shouts, appearing in a puff of popcorn kernels in front of the Hand So Below. For his final strike, he slams a headstone down on its knuckles, like a WWE wrestler with a folding chair. It shatters into a disrespecting cloud of rubble, doing relatively little to the Hand So Below. Stepping back, John laughs. "Sorry if that attack was... Korn-y!" he shouts to the hand. Still chuckling, he leans down and picks up the "Time" Sword from the void. "It took me a lot of work to get this," he tells no one in particular. Maybe Smirk. Who knows? "I'm not losing it that quickly." He sheathes the "Time" Sword once more with a smile. It's good to be King.

((TL;DR 2: Beet up the Hand So Below with the color red. And stab it. VIOLENTLY. With plenty of AG flair!))

Click to shrink...

Since the Engietech Drone has been neutralized, you build a house around BADAM instead. It's collapse removes 5 Twilight Providence.
Following this, you move to Terra Nox and absolutely obliterate the Hand So Below.

JORMUNGANDR's gaze falls upon you.

YOU WOULD INTERFERE WITH A STRIFE, WHELP? YOU WOULD BREAK MY RULES. IT WOULD ONLY BE JUSTICE THAT I BREAK YOU. 「JAWS」.

Opening it's mouth, JORMUNGANDR careens towards you. In an instant, you're inside his mouth. Within, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth,you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth,you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth,you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth, you're swallowed by another mouth, and within that mouth until you're suddenly splattered against what seems to be a metal wall. Except it's not actually a metal wall, it's the Core of Xanadu.
You see, JORMUNGANDR just punched through the planet. While he managed to pass through the Metal making up the Core, you didn't. As he reforms on the opposite side, he continues to bore a hole through Xanadu until he emerges from the other side.

Needless to say, you just died.

Xorm considers breaking out one of his Narrator's Musical Beatdowns. In case he doesn't, Extra Finger, and pocket some CP.

Click to shrink...

Im sorry. Is that really all you'll do? Sure.

Smirk looks at him. "No, I'd say I have business with the version your friend BALDR erased in the process of making this timeline. The difference being I'm reasonably certain that version could speak, and we were about to play a round of smash bros. In comparison, this is a poor copy. Also, man, I wish you didn't seem intent on destroying literally everything, because I happen to be a big fan of dragons, would totally want to chat."

Smirkogram pops up to do a massive, cartoon level eyeroll at the Arbiter. "No, really, I was planning on just sitting back and trying to let him get here before I could find someone, probably named THOR, to kill him. Yeesh, have a little faith in my basic planning skills."

Smirk then steps forwards towards the Xavier, and snaps his finger once. A green lattice of lightning strikes him, and when the metaphoric dust settles, there stands...

View: https://youtu.be/2ryLkTFuRrU
a green man in a bandit variant of a plumbing uniform, with a large amount of black. He also appears to be totally 2d. He yells out "L POWER!" And then...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQDlyjTMcA&t=789s
Loudspeakers, loudspeakers everywhere, blasting this obnoxious, braggadocios battle theme which only vaguely makes sense in context. And not just there. An army of Smirkograms, all sitting at DJ stations and partying it up as much as they can, scratching records, headphone to ear, the works, all blast the song out from all angles at BRINE, and it just won't stop. Even if he tries to strike them, they're holograms, and their numbers seem endlessly to expand in all directions by the millisecond, giving no space for the gambler to escape the cacophony.

Back at the actual fight, though, the green 2D man has been trying to spring jump around and into Xavier and\or the hands, when one of them slaps him away. He, gets up, and, as one would expect, summons a mech shaped like his face by tearing spacetime to strike back with. You know, as you do. He is now singing to the theme as well, seeming to enjoy it. As he does, his mech starts having robot fists lock with the Hands, and begins spinning them around as if dancing, before the nose of the ship shoots out a missile directly at Xavier?, followed by a laser shot from the eyes sweeping across Xavier?'s general vicinity. Then shoes fly in from nowhere, trying to kick around the hands and Xavier, seeming to try to toss them like a salad. In spite of all the theatrics, however, none of this seems to be doing much damage to any of the targets, although it would be hard to ignore any of it.

Speaking of ignoring that mess, where is Smirk anyhow? Oh, he's back on Xanadu button mashing on a Wiimote while watching a screen showing the battle, while sending out a subliminal signal keyed for the pinkish purple color the Arbiter mentioned THOR ODINSON in claiming JORMUNGANDR is about to make LOKI or SURTUR win the bet. A similar message is sent looking for the color red claiming similar, but BALDR and THOR/SURTUR. "That should get someone's attention, wouldn't you say?"

Click to shrink...

You summon speakers around The Red Dragon, which start blasting him with sound, dealing 6 damage.

YOU WISH TO ROCK? VERY WELL.

JORMUNGANDR begins to vibrate, playing music with his own body. Soundwaves begin to solidify, turning into stones. Rocks, to be precise, which begin raining downwards.

Meanwhile, you also create Mr. L to fight Xavier in your stead. his attacks glance off Xavier's shields, but destroy the Hand Above, rendering him shieldless.

You then go and try to ping the other Gamblers for their attention. They're all dead, so nobody comes to help.
It looks like it's just us then.
By the way, it's a good thing you left to return to Xanadu after John interfered. I suspect JORMUNGANDR would've used it as a justifiable reason to attack if you did before that. Which just means Xavier's stuck in orbit now.

---

BRINE has made landfall. Everything he passes through becomes Elemental energy in his wake. Ground becomes Earth, Seas become Water. As he roars in triumph, Oblivion spreads through the atmosphere, and the protection of your Descendancy begins to focus entirely on keeping you from dying to it, ignoring any other threats.
As Xanadu begins to fall apart, a deep, bloody crimson emanates from it's cracks, stalling the planet's destruction. What's going on?

BADAM notices that Twilight Providence is no longer regenerating.

"HEY! WHAT GIVES?"

THERE IS NO LONGER A NEED FOR YOU TO ACT AS MY PROXY. ANU SERVED HIS PURPOSE. AND YOU HAVE SERVED YOURS.

BADAM looks around, analyzes the situation, and teleports in front of Nikolai, who is beginning to become Blood.
"IF YOU WISH TO LIVE, TAKE MY HAND!"
As Nikolai grabs BADAM's hand, energy fills him, restoring him to full health. Yet a new set of armor materializes over him, one with a very distinctive helmet, it's slits arranged to resemble a very familiar symbol.
"GO FORTH, MY IRON PRINCE. RECLAIM YOUR NAME."

Now under Alan's control, the Engietech Drone punches BADAM right in the face, knocking 40 SHP off of his Twilight Providence. Meanwhile, the Adam who was formerly Ipos sits on the horse in silence, lost in his thoughts. Snapping back to attention, he guides his horse to gallop away. As he does, blinding light begins to sheathe steed and rider as they completely disappear, taking BADAM's future sight away with them. You hear something break inside him.

The Past Adams walk towards Xorm and Eris, challenging them to a Strife. At this point in time, only the two of them are capable of harming them.

Nikolai leaps into action. He and his sword are a blur as he runs around the battlefield as a juggernaut. He kills Kslera. June, Eris and myself each take 19 Damage.
"So this is your strength? How pitiful."
Labolas doesn't attack directly, but does drag Xavier Elem down onto the battlefield.

So, Nikolai's damage is being boosted by Labolas. Two can play at that game.
Go Xorm. Kill an Adam Clone or something. Let him taste Devil's Hand. His Dodge is gone. You can do it.

The Cowboys take aim at Nikolai, and deal 8 Damage total to Labolas.

The first wave of Oblivion comes. The Past "Adam"s and Cowboys lose MHP. Oddly enough, the horses don't.

Suddenly, John and Kslera spontaneously rise from the dead, feeling slightly weaker than before.
"I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU JUST YET!"

In the Past, BRINE claws Srovy. Oblivion coruscates across Srovy's body as he takes 55 damage to his MHP just like that. Srovy puts on the Boots of Order and activates its invulnerability. Armed with the knowledge of how the Enderman's Teleportation works, the Templars work towards thinning their numbers. Two Knights and the Chaplain manage to kill two, while the remaining three Knights are given Sledgehammers by the Nedben, who tasks them with perscribing BRINE with blunt trauma, dealing a heavy total of 27 damage to them.

The remaining Lesser Endermen single out Past JOE, slamming against the Barrier Safezones they actually break down 21 of them.

---

Itinerary:
Defeat BADAM.
Investigate this timeline.
Please kill Nikolai for me.
SMIRK: STALL BRINE AS LONG AS YOU CAN

Current Godmodder Hp: N/A

---

Gold Timeline: Xanadu.
WEATHER: EITR. Entities not immune to Magic take increasing amounts of damage to MHP each round. Descended are now Vulnerable.
TERRAIN: EITR. Xanadu will be destroyed in 9 Rounds.

[???][TERMINUS] BRINE. 200/200 Hp.
[???] Xavier Elem? 32/32 Hp. Primordial Barrier: 10 SHP. Attuned Element: Air.


[BOSS] BUILDER·BADAM. 40/90 Hp. Twilight Providence: 30 SHP! +100% Accuracy. Vulnerable to Vertical attacks! Immune to Magic!
[Summer-Alan][ELITE] Engietech Drone. 40,000/349,000 Hp. Attuned Element: Order! Bodyguarding BUILDER·BADAM!
[PB][ELITE] Ipos "Adam". 50/90 Hp. +100% Accuracy. Horse: 20,000 Hp.
[PB] Past "Adam". 20/24 Hp. +100% Accuracy. Strife Opponent: Xorm.
[PB] Past "Adam". 20/24 Hp. +100% Accuracy. +100% Dodge. Strife Opponent: Eris.
[PB][ELITE] The Iron Prince. (Nikolai: 50/50 Hp. 15 Armour. Bodyguarding Labolas.) (Labolas: 82/90 Hp. Bodyguarding Nikolai! Boosting Nikolai: +41,000 damage per hit!) Immune to Magic!

[Summer] The Arbiter. 51/70 Hp. Void: 30/50. Anteumbra! Penumbra Phantasm: +15 Void Per Round! Immune to Magic!
[Summer] Bounty Hunter. 9,000/9,000 Hp. Horse: 20,000 Hp. x4.
[Summer] Eris. 4/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Nedben. 6/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Alan. 7/25 Charge. Token! Has a Staff, but it's not a Staff of Symmetry? Just some normal Staff. It's still relevant though.
[Summer] Sylveon. 2/25 Charge. On a Horse? Maybe.
[Summer] June. 9/25 Charge. Token!
[Summer] Xorm. 4/25 Charge. Token! [A] Devil's Hand. Shells Loaded: 4/4. Maximum Capacity: 4. Total Shells: 6. Casimir Effect: +30,000 Damage per hit!
[Summer] JOE. 6/25 Charge.
[Summer] Kslera. 20/20 Charge. Token!
[AG] John. 20/20 Charge. Token! In possession of the TIME SWORD!
[Summer] Smirk. 7/25 Charge. Token!

---

Gold Timeline: JOE's Past.
WEATHER: AUDITORY ARMAGEDDON: Actions which generate noise deal 50% Sound damage back to whoever does it.
WEATHER: BARRIER: The first 100,000 damage dealt every round by the [???] Faction will be mitigated.

[???][TERMINUS] BRINE. 160/200 Hp. Hookedx2: 8 Damage/Round! Alph'd: 15 Damage/Round!
[???] Lesser Endermen. 40,000/40,000 Hp. Teleports: 3/4. x7.

[Summer] Barrier Safezone. 1,000/1,000 Hp. x9. Protects against being attacked by Endermen!
[JOE] JOE of the Past. 55/25 Charge. Release Blade: Blood, Active! Konami: Vulnerable!
[JOE] Srovy. 70/70 Hp. Release Blade: [], Active! Order Boots: Invincibility, 2 rounds!
[JOE] Templar Knight. 30,000/30,000 Hp. 15,000 Regen. Tenacious! Resistant to Eidokinesis. x5.
[JOE] Templar Chaplain. 50,000/50,000 Hp. 20,000 Regen. Tenacious! Resistant to Eidokinesis.

[N] Nedben. 25/25 Hp.

[Summer] Copy of JOE from the Present. 11/25 Charge. Konami: Vulnerable! Alph'd: 5 Damage/Round!

---

Gold Timeline: Terra Nox

[???] Hand As Above. 20,000 Hp. Attuned Elements: Darkness, Space.
[???] Hand So Below. 20,000 Hp. Attuned Elements: Darkness, Earth.

 

[Ender_Smirk]

BALDR TELLS ME YOU HAD UNFINISHED BUSINESS WITH XAVIER. ONCE YOU ARE DONE WITH HIM, I LAND ON XANADU.

Click to shrink...

Smirk looks at him. "No, I'd say I have business with the version your friend BALDR erased in the process of making this timeline. The difference being I'm reasonably certain that version could speak, and we were about to play a round of smash bros. In comparison, this is a poor copy. Also, man, I wish you didn't seem intent on destroying literally everything, because I happen to be a big fan of dragons, would totally want to chat."

SMIRK: STALL BRINE AS LONG AS YOU CAN

Click to shrink...

Smirkogram pops up to do a massive, cartoon level eyeroll at the Arbiter. "No, really, I was planning on just sitting back and trying to let him get here before I could find someone, probably named THOR, to kill him. Yeesh, have a little faith in my basic planning skills."

Smirk then steps forwards towards the Xavier, and snaps his finger once. A green lattice of lightning strikes him, and when the metaphoric dust settles, there stands...

View: https://youtu.be/2ryLkTFuRrU
a green man in a bandit variant of a plumbing uniform, with a large amount of black. He also appears to be totally 2d. He yells out "L POWER!" And then...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQDlyjTMcA&t=789s
Loudspeakers, loudspeakers everywhere, blasting this obnoxious, braggadocios battle theme which only vaguely makes sense in context. And not just there. An army of Smirkograms, all sitting at DJ stations and partying it up as much as they can, scratching records, headphone to ear, the works, all blast the song out from all angles at BRINE, and it just won't stop. Even if he tries to strike them, they're holograms, and their numbers seem endlessly to expand in all directions by the millisecond, giving no space for the gambler to escape the cacophony.

Back at the actual fight, though, the green 2D man has been trying to spring jump around and into Xavier and\or the hands, when one of them slaps him away. He, gets up, and, as one would expect, summons a mech shaped like his face by tearing spacetime to strike back with. You know, as you do. He is now singing to the theme as well, seeming to enjoy it. As he does, his mech starts having robot fists lock with the Hands, and begins spinning them around as if dancing, before the nose of the ship shoots out a missile directly at Xavier?, followed by a laser shot from the eyes sweeping across Xavier?'s general vicinity. Then shoes fly in from nowhere, trying to kick around the hands and Xavier, seeming to try to toss them like a salad. In spite of all the theatrics, however, none of this seems to be doing much damage to any of the targets, although it would be hard to ignore any of it.

Speaking of ignoring that mess, where is Smirk anyhow? Oh, he's back on Xanadu button mashing on a Wiimote while watching a screen showing the battle, while sending out a subliminal signal keyed for the pinkish purple color the Arbiter mentioned THOR ODINSON in claiming JORMUNGANDR is about to make LOKI or SURTUR win the bet. A similar message is sent looking for the color red claiming similar, but BALDR and THOR/SURTUR. "That should get someone's attention, wouldn't you say?"

 

[Thegoldenboy]

After running off the battlefield, I make a Minecraft iron pickaxe start mining straight down.